Writing is hard. Even though it’s what I love (deep down) and am good at (relatively), every cell in my body rebels against the thought of sitting down and forming words into sentences and paragraphs.
Things I have done in the past week to avoid writing this blog post (a completely voluntary, zero-pressure activity that is supposed to be enjoyable – a hobby!):
- Spend hours updating my fledgling wordpress.com blog, ultimately converting it into a wordpress.org blog. This involved reading multiple how-to articles with lots of technical terms I definitely did not understand and therefore had to research, but look at me now!
- Begin an intensive daily exercise program (the app was on sale, OK?) even though I have not exercised in more than six months.
- Apply to no less than 40 jobs. (I am so desperate right now.)
- Brush up on HTML by completing a seven-hour online course. Consider learning Javascript next.
- Make homemade pizza from scratch. Twice.
- Read a John Steinbeck novel.
Allow me to reiterate that I created this blog purely for myself. There is no incentive for me to write other than enjoyment or venting purposes.
The problem, still, is the ridiculous standard I have for myself.
You grow up with extreme perfectionist anxiety, get a few compliments on your writing from some college professors, and suddenly it’s like you think everything you write should be worthy of the fucking New Yorker.
I know I am capable of writing things that are good. Maybe, sometimes, very good. But now, when I am faced with a blank page, I am so overwhelmed by the pressure for every sentence to be brilliant and insightful and creative that I feel like I’m choking. No words come out at all.
Trying to produce good writing, word by word, sentence by sentence, is the most painful kind of torture. It is slow, and agonizing, and just when you think you’ve completed a masterpiece, you scroll back up and realize you’ve only written two sentences that reek of desperation and you have to start all over.
You know what? I hate it. Really, I do. I say it’s my passion, but, god, what a relief to announce that I hate sitting down to write!!!
I don’t know what the writing process is like for everyone else. I’m sure it varies. I have to allow myself to be suckered into a different reality. When I’m writing, I feel like I’m on a separate plane of existence. The outside world is shut off and quiet. I don’t let anything in. I get tunnel vision. All that exists is me and the words on the page in front of me, and I have to keep going and maintain whatever groove I’m in because if I get up for even a second I will lose it all. Like staring at an object for a while without blinking. And it takes a while to sink into this state. I can’t just pop in and out. It requires time and commitment, which I’m not always willing to make.
Do you want to know the real reason I hate writing? It’s not the writing part. And I’m not sure it’s really hate, either.
Writing scares me. It’s my dream – my big dream – and I know I might succeed at it if I really, really work my ass off. I’m not sure if I am more terrified of putting in all that grueling, agonizing, necessary work or failing at my dream – or maybe what happens if I do both.
How do you manage to string two words together when the fear and anxiety and stress and self-imposed expectations are strangling you and squeezing your eyeballs out of your head before you’ve even opened a fresh document on your computer?
How do you work your way up from never writing a goddamn thing, to writing prolifically, to ultimately achieving your big writing dreams?
By creating a website, sharing it with no one, and writing one garbage blog post at a time.
