One good reason for Persistence | Tools for writers

Learning to write is like learning to play the violin.

The first tentative scratches on a violin rend the atmosphere like a love-sick cat. The violinist must learn to survive the caterwauling and not succumb to jeers and taunts from her inner critic.

After a jillion hours of practice, the violinist is no longer separate from the violin and her very pores are filled with the vibration of sound.  In her waking hours, when she is not playing, she feels the curve of her wrist around the instrument, and her head inclines toward her shoulder. Waking or sleeping, music haunts her with the bittersweet longing of a lover. She has lost all perspective. Is she the musician or the instrument? She seeks every opportunity to slip free from the ties of normal life and rejoin her soul mate.

Going too long without her instrument leaves her gasping for air. The violin, the music and the violinist breathe as one.