I always give it my best, sweat over it, but still have great fun doing it. Yep, much like having sex.
I look for ways to make my characters more real - a pot belly here, a scar there, hang ups and neuroses lurking all over the place; I don't always dwell on them (my stories are short by Lush standards), and my writing more often focuses on the attractive parts of my characters and the pleasurable aspects of their sex, but the cracks are there. Without them, I'm just making cartoons.
Speaking more broadly about the question, I spend far too long, sometimes months, crafting a 2500 word story. I have no delusions of making great art, but I do take it seriously and I won't submit something I am not happy with. I have submitted six stories on this site and, although I have my own preferences, in different ways I'll stand by each of them, imperfections and all. I'd hate to put out something that I later found embarrassing (not disliked, that's slightly different), so I kind of have to take it seriously.
Like many things in life, I really just half ass it all and get lucky.
Should probably work on that.
Thank you for all the great comments that everyone has written. I like writing seriously sometimes. But for the most part there is an idea in my head and I like to get it out. As some of you have said there are times when you write that you want it more than just wham bam thank you ma'am/sir sex. That lasts for the whole night. Which we all know is quite impossible unless there is some serious drugs involved.
As someone posted (forgot who) the description (e.g bra size, penis length) turns you off. Or that two people just met three minutes ago now they are fucking like crazy people. Is also a turn off for some. I am sure there are some that would say the lead up that takes 2,000 words to get to them lying down for 400 words of sex is boring?
Would anyone say that an author that does one and not the other is bad/terrible or good/awesome? And why?
I take my life's story seriously, but laugh a gentle sigh, when it comes to my writing. I write to scratch the itch between words I compose and often become arcane when I scribe black. I write entirely for the moment, and the joy it brings, and if 'one' person finds it to their liking, then I am jubilated.