Chinua Achebe: Pleasurable and Difficult

INTERVIEWER: Then is writing easy for you? Or do you find it difficult?

ACHEBE: The honest answer is, it’s difficult. But the word difficult doesn’t really express what I mean. It is like wrestling; you are wrestling with ideas and with the story. There is a lot of energy required. At the same time, it is exciting. So it is both difficult and easy. What you must accept is that your life is not going to be the same while you are writing. I have said in the kind of exaggerated manner of writers and prophets that writing, for me, is like receiving a term of imprisonment--—you know that’s what you’re in for, for whatever time it takes. So it is both pleasurable and difficult.
- Chinua Achebe Paris Review Interview