From an “Art of Fiction” interview with The Paris Review:

INTERVIEWER

Is writing easy for you? Perelman said that there are two kinds of writers: those to whom it comes easily and those for whom every word is a drop of blood being sucked out. He put himself in the second category. What is it like for you?

BARNES

I’m not very sympathetic to the bloodsucking complaint, because no one ever asked a writer to be a writer. I’ve heard people say, Oh, it’s so lonely! Well, if you don’t like the solitude, don’t do it. Most writers when they complain are just showboating in my opinion. Of course it’s hard work — so it should be. But would you swap it for child-minding hyperactive twins, for instance?

INTERVIEWER

One can like the result but not necessarily the process, don’t you think?

BARNES

I think you should like the process. I would imagine that a great pianist would enjoy practicing because, after you’ve technically mastered the instrument, practicing is about testing interpretation and nuance and everything else. Of course, the satisfaction, the pleasure of writing varies; the pleasure of the first draft is quite different from that of revision.

INTERVIEWER

The first draft is fraught with difficulty. It’s like giving birth, very painful, but after that taking care of and playing with the baby is full of joy.

BARNES

Ah! But sometimes it isn’t a baby, it’s something hideous and malformed; it doesn’t look like a baby at all. I tend to write quickly when I’m on the first draft, and then just revise and revise.

INTERVIEWER

So you rewrite a lot?

BARNES

All the time. That’s when the real work begins. The pleasure of the first draft lies in deceiving yourself that it is quite close to the real thing. The pleasure of the subsequent drafts lies partly in realizing that you haven’t been gulled by the first draft.

(Quoted, in part, at the excellent Work in Progress blog of publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux. While I agree with Barnes’s sentiment, and love the way he put it, I’m embarrassed to admit that what drew me there was the blog post’s title. I thought it was going to be some erudite commentary on the Talking Heads song.)