Writing is Difficult: A Short Apologia
Writing is Difficult: A Short Apologia
Writing is difficult; incredibly difficult. Unfortunately, many people have fallen for the trap that says writing is easy. Far from it.
The books you have bought, courses you have taken, and videos you have watched that have promised you how to make writing easy for you are, at best, very deceptive.
Writing is not easy now or later, and I believe that people who claim that writing is easy for them are blatantly lying or are nothing close to being a writer.
Writing is writing done well if it is difficult and scares the shit out of you.
When we say writing is difficult, we mean we have difficulty expressing our thought processes in words. “The words are not coming out the way I want them to,” we say. So then we write a sentence only to delete it because we do not like the outcome, and if you are not careful, you get stuck there.
This summarizes why writing is challenging. Writing is communicating the ideas in your head to the public. So, first of all, you have no clue who might pick up your piece to read. Secondly, you want to ensure you clearly communicate the ideas you have in your head.
Self-doubt begins to creep in when you consider the possibility of someone spotting the lapses in your thought process. Worse still, if you make a grammatical mistake. This idea alone is crippling and is not a matter of talent. Like everything that involves showing up, it is extremely difficult to manage how people will accept your work.
Clear thinking is mostly underestimated around here. The rigor of going through the mess in your head to attain clarity on a topic is daunting. Is there anyone that wants to look through their vomit? Naa. Totally disgusting, right? That is what writing is like.
Investigating your thought process is complicated. First, it reveals your ignorance in 3D to you, and it takes a lot of courage to want to confront it and then refine it.
If you find writing difficult, take heart, it is expected to be hard. But, if you think I am here to give you a way out or a hack or tip on how to make writing easy, you might have missed the point.
What I can do, however, is to encourage you to sit it through, endure and enjoy the process and publish that work.
To be clear, it is never going to get easy.
