When I started writing, I had no idea what hard work it was. I thought it was just a matter of telling a story. Hah! And now, when I am reading the work of other beginners, although I often feel a little shiver of excitement when someone obviously has potential, I often think that they sell themselves short because they have lost patience (or interest) in what they are doing, or have become discouraged for some other reason, or simply have not yet become aware of how many revisions are needed to give their work its best chance.
Often, it is not the technical challenges which are the hardest to deal with as these can be overcome with patience and practice; your writing may well illuminate for you personal isssues that are unresolved. (My first agent read a draft of a novel that I had written and suggested that I went into therapy! The best advice she gave me...) The stuff that you shy away from in your writing is often what you need to concentrate on the most. It's like turning into the skid, when what your instinct is telling you to do is to wrench the steering wheel in precisely the opposite direction. If you can't spot your weaknesses yourself, a reading friend (or creative writing teacher) will quickly pick them up and then it is up to you to focus all your energies on them, because your strengths will also come from the same source.
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