"Novel writing is far and away the most exhausting work I know"
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A working novelist admitting exhaustion is a quiet act of demystification. Forester’s line refuses the romantic badge that fiction gets in popular culture: the lonely genius, the inspired rush, the glamorous life of letters. He frames novel writing as labor, and not the cute kind. “Far and away” is doing heavy lifting here, a phrase with the blunt certainty of someone who has tried other forms of work and still ranks this as the most draining. It’s less complaint than calibrated warning.
The subtext is about endurance more than talent. Novel writing taxes every system at once: attention, memory, taste, self-trust. You have to hold a whole world in your head while also tending to the smallest choices of rhythm and sentence. The exhaustion Forester points to isn’t only the hours at the desk; it’s the psychic drag of making thousands of decisions that cannot be fully verified until the book exists. If you’re wrong, you may not find out for 300 pages.
Context matters: Forester was a professional storyteller, best known for the Hornblower naval series, writing in an era when many novelists produced at speed to meet market demands. His remark reads like an insider’s corrective to the myth that productivity equals ease. The intent is almost ethical: don’t confuse output with effort; don’t confuse craft with leisure. Novel writing, for Forester, is not a pastime. It’s a sustained campaign against your own distraction, doubt, and the stubbornness of imagined reality.
The subtext is about endurance more than talent. Novel writing taxes every system at once: attention, memory, taste, self-trust. You have to hold a whole world in your head while also tending to the smallest choices of rhythm and sentence. The exhaustion Forester points to isn’t only the hours at the desk; it’s the psychic drag of making thousands of decisions that cannot be fully verified until the book exists. If you’re wrong, you may not find out for 300 pages.
Context matters: Forester was a professional storyteller, best known for the Hornblower naval series, writing in an era when many novelists produced at speed to meet market demands. His remark reads like an insider’s corrective to the myth that productivity equals ease. The intent is almost ethical: don’t confuse output with effort; don’t confuse craft with leisure. Novel writing, for Forester, is not a pastime. It’s a sustained campaign against your own distraction, doubt, and the stubbornness of imagined reality.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
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