Wallowing. It’s a word that evokes both pleasure and pain. You might wallow in contented luxury or in misery about the endless slog of suffering and sorrow. One of my favorite Victorian genre writers, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, described the process of learning how to write as “wallowing in ink.” It’s such an evocative description, capturing the highs and lows of the writing life in one colorful metaphor. I haven’t been able to shake it since I stumbled across it in her memoir.