Why don’t I write more?

To paraphrase youtuber CGPGrey with my own twist. I see writing as like running; do I enjoy the feeling of having been for a run? Absolutely. Do I enjoy running? Absolutely not.

Since leaving on my journey I’ve been journaling and conceptualising articles almost non-stop. My mind is aflutter with ideas, angles, viewpoints from the new experiences. Lord knows anyone I spoke to has had to endure my loquacious rambling.

Forming the unstructured mess of my mind into coherent sentences and paragraphs requires energy that I’ve been using to actually live new experiences and to rewatch clips of The West Wing on Youtube.

ADHD is both a blessing and a curse for writing. My brain prefers short form content of writing and editing. This is what I used to use my old group chats and work Slack channels for. Send them a hastily edited paragraph or two and pray it gets some laugh reactions to validate my self-worth. Yet my aspirational consumption habits crave longer form and better thought out projects. It’s time to hold my creative process to that higher standard.

The other issue is one of quality. I’m not a skilled enough writer to produce work I’d want to read yet. My taste is refined to the rarified heights of Dostoevsky and Foster-Wallace, I’m not sure if my efforts qualify for Buzzfeed. Hence many of my hyperfocused writing sessions are re-read the next day in pure horror at the linguistic mess I’ve defecated onto a page.

In the face of painfully re-editing those attempts, the temptation is high to throw my unstructured notes into an LLM and post the results. [Future article on my use of LLMs coming sometime in 2028] While it’d be infinitely more palatable, I’m resisting that urge. 

I have to date written one longform piece [Go read it!]. It’s about the pride to be taken from creation of imperfect art. Time for me to live up to what I preach.

Why don’t I write more? Watch me.