I recently heard award-winning author Ann Pachett (Bel Canto, The Patron Saint of Liars) speak about how as a writing community, we've gotten caught up on this idea of creativity, waiting for our muse to speak, blahblahblah, but that this is a business—success is tied to gluing your butt to the seat and doing that work, and not just the creative work, but the technical work; learn how to do the job you've chosen, all aspects of it.

This was an awkward pill for me to swallow.  Writing isn't something off the beaten track, like electrical wiring or futures trading.  We know how to write, right?  I'll bet close to every single person who attempts a career as an author was labeled a "good writer" in school.  In addition, I was a nonfiction writer by profession.  I know how to write.  Yet I had conveniently forgotten the semester-long article writing classes I took in college, all the material I'd read on writing nonfiction, and all the articles I'd studied and broken down for leads, use of quotes, rhythm, etc., not to mention the queries and articles I wrote and didn't sell as I learned my craft of nonfiction writing.

I somehow imagined I wouldn't need to go through this same kind of process to publish fiction. 

A select few of us may come to writing fiction as if we were born to do it, but I realize I'm not one of them.  Most of us will need to put in the time...and at the end run, find it tremendously rewarding to have done so.