Woefully written

Headline alts: Woe is my writing; words and woe; woefully wordy

I call myself a writer, but I’m not sure I even enjoy writing. I’ll tell you what I enjoy. I enjoy being done…writing, I mean. Reading something back, after proofing it three times over, and deciding, “yes, this is good enough” and then publishing it. It’s the means to that end I simply do not enjoy.

And I wish I knew why. Allow me to guess.

Sometimes I wonder if writing takes up too much of my mental energy. When I’m writing, I am judging every single damn word I put down. Every sentence I cleverly string together (note the irony). And yes, I do fancy myself clever, and as such, try for clever writing—to the point that I want to drive a pointy object through both of my eyes. In the end, it always reads like I’m trying way too hard. Imposter, an accusing voice whispers. You’re right, I reply. Who do I think I am?

Even now, I am judging my writing. And I guess that’s on brand. The great writers were — are — a little... touched. Insecure. Drowning in self doubt. And eventually that worked for them — if not in their lifetime, then certainly after. Angst sells.

I think it’s about tapping into that angst and shaping it into some nugget of universal (and, ideally, practical) truth. Right? Like I can’t just spend an entire blog post venting out my angst in proclamations of woe is me, the world and everyone in it want to see me fail, can’t you see I’m miserable… as much as I really want to. To simply let all that negative energy spill out of my fingertips and dance across my keyboard, only to appear letter by letter on the white of my computer screen? Ya. But that’s too easy. If I want my writing to be meaningful and not send people running, I should dig deeper, excavate the moral of my angst, and bring it all full circle — maybe sprinkle a little sugar on top.

Sigh.

I should… but… it sounds hard.