I used to write all the time. I’d sit and bang out a flippant but publishable blog post with very little forethought. Words and ideas would spill out of me.
At some point, life got in the way. I couldn’t pinpoint the month or even the year, but I stopped writing altogether—first recreationally, then professionally. I let serious goals get in the way of sensible goals, by which I mean professional growth goals took precedence over achievable goals. I let others’ projected expectations lead me away from my own comfortable expectations. This resulted in some great times, but also some traumatic experiences.
It’s now many years later and I’m rediscovering the joy of writing, for catharsis, achievement, art and pleasure. However, the closer I get to putting words in a public space, the louder the inner monologue becomes.
- ‘Have you lost your ability?’ I know I’m rusty, and every piece of advice I read and see says to just start, because ability comes with experience.
- ‘Will you embarrass yourself?’ The real question is: do I care? If I’m writing for myself, does it matter what people think? Should I be thrown off course by people I don’t know telling me how bad I am at something? Or do I throw up my personal boundaries and keep going? (I already know the answer.)
- ‘Are you as good as you think you are, or even as good as you think you once were?’ I would get excellent responses to my online writing, but that was from people I knew, or at least people I would talk to regularly. That’s never a gauge of objective quality. On the other hand, I enjoyed writing, and I think my pleasure came through in my writing. So, does it matter that I might never have been good at writing, if indeed that’s true?
- ‘Are you just wasting your time with this?’ Maybe, but how much of my life have I wasted on unachievable goals? How many years have I spent pursuing goals which made me unhappy and destroyed my confidence? Writing is a goal I’ve always had, and it’s something I’ve always enjoyed doing, so why shouldn’t I try it? What do I have to lose from giving it a red hot go, and what do I have to gain from taking it seriously?
I come away from these questions with an ever stronger drive to write, but that’s not to say my confidence remains intact. I suppose the only way to know whether I’m capable of sustained, long-term writing is to do it. It can’t be detrimental; in fact, it can only boost my skills.
This is where this particular blog comes in, then. It’s not professional writing that would appeal to an audience, neither is it private writing in an encrypted file that nobody will ever read. It’s public writing in a quiet space that a few people might see, and that I will not choose to defend.