Writing as shaving with a dull razor...

Real writing... as opposed to this journal writing improvisation...

is a lot like shaving a full beard with an old, dull razor.

The words that remain etched in timeless perfection, should you succeed, are like the clean, intransient lines of a well shaved face.

Growing the shaggy mane of verbiage is the easy part.  In time, it simply collects there and cascades off the outline of your suitably expressive creation.

The essential aspect of the work lies in the hacking through dense jungles of wild, intriguing--but superfluous--growth, to steadily reveal more and more of the unchanging essence which was ever present below.  

Wave after wave of successively closer depilatory assaults must be waged... from broad, haphazard scissoring, through successive rough cut drafts and haggardly, unsightly half-shaven-ness, replete with odd tufts, uncooperative stubble, and on down through finer and smoother lines, with ample supply of brazen lone hairs.

If patient enough, though, you can come marvelously close to an actual "clean shave." (that illusory perfection you get with a moderately new blade, a bit of focus & some good lighting)

However, no matter how well you do, irrespective of how long you spend battling... you will always find yourself out in public before noticing a number of glaring stray hairs in the mirror of a well lit bathroom.  It can really seem as if they grew magically from places that you absolutely triple checked before.

A true pro won't have entire missed spots or even general raggedness... but there always does seem to appear those miraculously resilient single hairs... shining, oh so obvious--now--against the silky smooth sheen of your otherwise perfect shave.

Out of nowhere!  Never before seen testaments to the obviously less than perfect nature of your perception.