Writing is Like.....

Writing is like cooking - you get an idea and then you go off and maybe you research lots of other recipes or you visit cooking blogs or you talk to people who have cooked (or tried cooking) and you tell them about your idea and they in turn give you their opinion about your ingredients, methodology, equipment etc and eventually you bite the bullet and you do it and then you taste it.  It might be too sweet.  Too sour.  Not quite cooked all the way through.  It may even give you food poisoning but it's a starting point and from there you can either choose to cook more or quit forever.  Even if you found the perfect recipe book and followed it to the letter, there are so many variables (your oven, your produce, your timer, your taste buds) that there is still no guarantee of perfection.  But if it tastes good and it doesn't choke, burn, sicken or kill you then you can call yourself a cook.

Apparently lots of people have written similes to do with writing.  Here are some I found trawling the net (please note none of these are my work and I have attributed the work to the author where possible):

"Writing is like lemons" (cute article read here) by Amy Schultz.
"Writing is like Mountain Climbing" (quote) by Jonathan Lethem.
"Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, and then for a few close friends, and then for money."  Moliere
"Writing is like sex" (fresh and frisky article) by Terreece M Clarke.
"Writing is like a Parasitic Catfish" (a somewhat uncomfortable article) by Jeremy Luke Hill.
"Writing a novel is like Man Flu" (a very funny and accurate article) by Julie Cohen.
"Writing is like dropping feathers down a well.  Any echo is appreciated." John D. MacDonald
"Writing is like taking a s**t - sometimes it comes out easy, other times it takes patience, and it's painful."  Comment on this blog by Farmboy.
"Writing is like making love.  Don't worry about the orgasm, just concentrate on the process." Quote by Isabel Allende (the quote starts this interesting post) by Andrea on her blog.
"Writing is like dancing" (a motivational post) by Lulu.
"Writing is like driving at night in the fog.  You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way." E.L. Doctorow.
"Writing is like good sex.  You get caught up in the moment and afterwards, with a few glistening beads of the good kind of sweat, you sit back and smugly say to yourself - Woo Hoo!" (on this blog)
"Writing is like driving.  Many know how to do it, but it doesn't mean they should.  And only the professionals can break the rules and get handsomely rewarded for it." (same blog as above).
"Writing is like a baby.  It calls to you at inopportune times and is selfishly driven.  Some days it doesn't matter what you put into it, all that comes out is crap."  (same blog as above).
And while it's not a pure simile this post How Writing Can Be Like Great Sex is very good reading as well.

So there you have it - to sum up: Writing is Like Great Sex While Driving, Dancing and Dropping Feathers (and S**t) Down a Well With Man Flu Before Becoming a Prostitute and Climbing Mountains Holding Lemons and Dealing With Parasitic Catfish.

No wonder we love it!