Every day this week, I’ve sat down fully intending to write a piece with some degree of polish, and throw it up on the internet, either on Medium or my WordPress blog.
Monday was unsuccessful for reasons I didn’t understand, although I did make some progress with a couple of drafts. Tuesday was harder, and some volunteering I did that evening—which is usually no problem for me, and which I normally tear through with relish—was only achieved in fits and starts. Yesterday I woke up feeling properly ill, and gave myself the day off trying to push myself into action.
Today I feel better, but I still can’t get it together to write something for publication. I have a Trello board full of ideas which were electric when I came up with them, but today none of them have helped me get going.
All through this new direction—just 17 days!—I’ve understood that I need to rebuild my writing muscles by writing something, whether it’s here, somewhere professional or in my private nonsense journal. I’ve been taking private notes all week, but they’ve veered hard into the deeply introspective. I’ve not been able to formulate anything of interest to anyone else.
This has got me thinking about procrastination.
In the past I’ve definitely fallen foul of what can easily be described as procrastination: finding something easier to do; letting my attention wander to the nearest shiny object; doomscrolling. More commonly, as I’ve recently learnt from my ADHD diagnosis and treatment, I tend to search for dopamine hits, consciously or without any awareness at all.
This isn’t that, though.
I love writing, so it’s not something I resist. In the past I found it quite easy to smash together a piece to throw online, and even now I have no trouble bashing out 2,000 words of coherent nonsense in just over an hour.
To a degree this is related to confidence, but it’s no longer an issue with fear of others encroaching on my personal boundaries, which I’ve handily and permanently quashed; neither is it a reluctance to be authentic online, with my real name against my opinions.
It’s also related to the standards by which I’m hoping to hold myself, but only where Medium is concerned, because I see publishing there as a long term endeavour.
Ultimately I think it comes down to a combination of two things: a lack of practice in writing to a quality standard for extended periods, and fundamental issues with my brain failing to cooperate when I need it to. The latter is down to neurodivergence, and the former is something I’ll conquer by making writing a habit and a dedicated part of my daily life. I do feel there’s something in addition—depression, for example—but right now I can’t discern what that might be.
The fact that I’ve written this 500 word piece rather quickly shows that writing itself is not the problem, especially when the topic is front and centre in my mind. I'm sure things will loosen up as I push through whatever's going on with me. It's just fascinating, and a little bit deflating, to experience this glacier-like defrosting simultaneously with my enthusiam to write.