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Spreading good ideas with someone you know is one of the simplest things we can do to improve the conversation.

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  steven mosco replied on 09:42 AM on January 17, 2008
  I love to write ... essays, journalism, columns, humor, etc ... I love to do it, and I wish it to be my profession one day. But every time I do it, I feel like I might kill myself. Sometimes, absolute zero is about all I can squeeze out of my depleted mind. It is comforting to know that many of the greats feel the same way ... that fills me with warmth, gas, and the necessary drive to continue my suicidal career choice.
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  steven mosco replied on 02:42 PM on January 17, 2008
  I love to write ... essays, journalism, columns, humor, etc ... I love to do it, and I wish it to be my profession one day. But every time I do it, I feel like I might kill myself. Sometimes, absolute zero is about all I can squeeze out of my depleted mind. It is comforting to know that many of the greats feel the same way ... that fills me with warmth, gas, and the necessary drive to continue my suicidal career choice.
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• jessica baker replied on 01:42 PM on January 20, 2008
  The struggle of writting is when you are not feeling what you are writing. I love to write but when i am not in the mood my words arnt as meaningful, to write best i think you need to be feeling what you are writting and for most people this is depression or sad writing, Most poems seem to be sad same for lyrics, It is also good to write when your mad or angry it seems a good time to write because you can express your emotion into your words. :):)
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• jessica baker replied on 06:42 PM on January 20, 2008
  The struggle of writting is when you are not feeling what you are writing. I love to write but when i am not in the mood my words arnt as meaningful, to write best i think you need to be feeling what you are writting and for most people this is depression or sad writing, Most poems seem to be sad same for lyrics, It is also good to write when your mad or angry it seems a good time to write because you can express your emotion into your words. :):)
  
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The Struggle of Writing

But any kind of writing – non-fiction or fiction – is a struggle. It’s a very, you know, moment-to-moment struggle of figuring out the right . . . where the right sentence, the right paragraph, the right page, the right structure for the larger thing. And when you’re writing a book – my two novels have been 600 odd pages – that’s . . . there’s . . . that becomes an enormous structure to . . . to try to . . . to try to get as right as possible. So that’s . . . It’s a . . . It’s a pleasurable struggle when you’re done; but it is a struggle while it’s going on. I actually find the work of writing fiction less of a struggle, less of a stressful procedure than I do writing a 1,700 word essay. That to me is . . . the . . . the essay, or journalism really is sort of . . . is almost pure struggle. And then I’m only happy when I’m done. Whereas fiction actually . . . writing fiction has moments of . . . of pleasure amid the struggle while it’s going on. Recorded On: 7/5/07

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Kurt Andersen, host of Studio 360 on NPR, is a journalist and the author of the novels Hey Day, Turn of the Century, and The Real Thing. He has written and produced prime-time network television programs and pilots for NBC and ABC, and co-authored Loose Lips, an off-Broadway theatrical revue that had long runs in New York and Los Angeles. He is a regular columnist for New York Magazine, and contributes frequently to Vanity Fair. He is also a founder of Very Short List.  Andersen began his career in journalism at NBC’s Today program and at Time, where he was an award-winning writer on politics and criminal justice and for eight years the magazine’s architecture and design critic. Returning to Time in 1993 as editor-at-large, he wrote a weekly column on culture. And from 1996 through 1999 he was a staff writer and columnist for The New Yorker. He was a co-founder of Inside.com, editorial director of Colors magazine, and editor-in-chief of both New York and Spy magazines, the latter of which he also co-founded.  From 2004 through 2008 he wrote a column called “The Imperial  City” for New York (one of which is included in The Best American Magazine Writing 2008).  In 2008 Forbes. com named him one of The 25 Most Influential Liberals in the U.S. Media.

Anderson graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College, and is a member of the boards of trustees of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, the Pratt Institute, and is currently Visionary in Residence at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. He lives with his family in New York City.

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