Maybe writing is not for me. Maybe I am doing the wrong thing. Maybe I am taking the writing thing too seriously and trying to be something who I am not.
These were my thoughts every time I sat down and tried to write. If this is you, I hope you do not feel so alone in this, for writing and publishing are hard… Right?
Mostly, I already told what happened to me in the previous blog—why I stopped everything. I was sick and had so much to do that I did nothing. Now I want to focus on the writing part. Part of the problem was how much pressure I was putting myself under—I needed to create something every week when I had never done this before.
Publishing should be the easy part… Right?
I had so many problematic thoughts from the beginning. Writing is hard in itself without publishing. But when I think about the fact that I need to publish, I panic. I thought that the feelings and thoughts would disappear after a while, and they did become better, but not enough.
At first, I was so reluctant to publish anything, even though I knew that nobody would read anything I wrote except my friends, of course (thank you for reading this, my friend), but after the first one, some kind of block fell away. I could stomach the thought of something of my creation being out there and existing for my friends to read. After the second one, I felt confident about what I was writing. After the third one, I felt that I did not care if everybody in the world read what I wrote. I got used to the weird feeling that what I wrote was out there.
But even though it became easier to publish, it did not become easier to write.
What happened to just writing?
Writing itself is fun, but with overwhelming thoughts and feelings, it is torturous.
The thoughts: what is everybody going to think? This is so bad; I can’t write; I will never be able to do this; who cares about what I write; nobody is ever going to read this; who am I to publish anything on the internet? I want to give some sort of value, but anything I write is not good enough. And the feelings—afraid, so afraid that nothing is going to work, afraid that I am not good enough, feeling like a fraud— Also, I did not want to write and was not in the mood for it because it felt like too much effort for something that nobody is ever going to read, and at the same time, I was afraid that if somebody is going to read it, then it needs to be good.
All these thoughts and feelings were torturing me.
And without a good writing habit, I was not going anywhere.
So, just write every day?
Habits are good for combating these feelings and thoughts because you learn how to manage them. A writing habit breaks these thoughts; it becomes normal to write, so normal that you just do the thing you need to do. At least in theory; mostly, it is my hypothesis because I have not cultivated a writing habit.
Writing for an hour or 40 minutes a day was a great idea. In the beginning, the idea was to write so much that I got into the habit and figured out what interested me—what I wanted to write about.
It did not go so well.
I tried to write, but it was not every day. I did not succeed at creating a habit. Mostly, I focused on producing a blog weekly. Which meant that I did most of the writing the two days before. Maybe the rough draft was created before when I had inspiration, but mostly I worked for the last two days to get everything done.
I will confront these tortuous feelings and thoughts and let them go.
WHAT NOW?
Right now, I want to create the habit of writing every day. Even if it is nonsense. I want to be more articulate and focused to document my life and summarise what I am interested in. I want to be able to communicate my thoughts and feelings correctly and understandably. I do not know where this writing will lead me, but I know I will learn a lot.
I am committed to writing every day. Even with pen and paper.
I will get into tips on how to create a good writing habit, but this blog is already long, and I will create that some other week.
CONCLUSION
In the end, writing is a fun thing to do; it brings clarity, and in writing, you need to be more focused so you can examine your thoughts. Hopefully, with time and consistency, writing and publishing will get easier. Even if it is hard, you should not give up, and I will not give up. After all, I have a challenge I have to complete.
See you next week!