Virginia Woolf wrote: 

"D'ya mean to say your silken phrases are dug for and sweated out?  I thought you dipped your brush and drew your stroke.  And as for me, I write everything except Orlando 4 times over, and should write it 6 times; and after a morning of grunting and groaning have 200 words to show:  and those as crazy as broken china.
"These are sober facts; and then we, who live in the same age, and sometimes meet in the flesh, have these mistaken ideas about each other: What then is the worth of criticism?"

~In a letter to David Garnett (Dec.,1929) A Reflection of The Other Person / The Letters of Virginia Woolf 1929 - 1931, Editor N. Nicolson; Assistant Editor: J. Trautmann, Chatto & Windus Ltd., Clarke, Irwin & Co. Ltd., 1978.