Forcing Myself to Write Like I’m Proficient While I’m Anything But

Maybe I was too ambitious to think I could simultaneously squeeze worthy ideas out of my right brain while editing my thoughts into coherent articles with my left brain.

I know there's a process to writing, but my brain seems to want to do all the things at once. I try to slow down and be more methodical, but my process is quite messy. It's like I have concrete ideas but write them in abstract.

When I read back my writing, I see several different ways I can organize my thoughts, areas I could expand on, or that don't really go with anything, but as I edit them, I lose sight of what I'm trying do say.

What was my angle? What was the point? Why is this paragraph here? It made sense at the time.

Is my idea even creative? Maybe if I write creatively, it won't matter. How do I write creatively? It's been so long. And grammar. When, to use, commas.

I've forgotten everything.

But I must force myself to keep going. I must finish my ideas instead of abandoning them. I have to commit to finding my words and my voice, even with my dumbed-down skills, or else I'm doomed to never become the prolific writer as I once was.

God, why did I ever stop writing? I don't even remember. I don't want to remember. I just want to get back to that place where my right and left brain worked in harmony, fearlessly and creatively sharing stories and insights like it was easy.

Hard Lessons & Hard Truths

I feel like a masochist saying this, but I wish I was back in college dealing with the professors who brutally graded my essays. Initially, I dreaded those classes and felt like too much was being asked of me, and these weren’t advanced classes. My pride battled itself through the first few papers.

She’s being nitpicky.

I don’t know a better way to communicate the idea.

A ‘C’???? I worked so hard on that.

How does he not understand what I’m saying?

How did I misplace so many commas? That’s embarrassing.

I can’t expand on this idea any more than I have.

Why can’t they all just agree on MLA and be done with it?

The turnaround for me was accepting that to pass these classes, I had to give them what they wanted. No amount of fussing and kicking would change that. The only way for me to submit to the process was to acknowledge that I was struggling because I wasn’t as good of a writer as I thought.

To be honest with myself, I had to realize that all those who told me I should do something with my writing, it was so good, etc., were not writers. They were family, friends, coworkers. Not to say none of them knew what good writing was, but to reach the level I wanted to, I needed feedback from people who knew what they were talking about. My professors were the first ones to come along and make me feel small, but they also taught me how to be better.

You wouldn’t know it reading my stuff, would you? That’s because I scared myself away from writing before I put much time into it. Part of it was the crushing realization of how far I had to go. Sure, I’d grown a little inside by recognizing the days of impressing people were over much like a 40-year-old jock clinging to his high school football glory days. The other part was having no direction. I’ve dabbled with blogging off and on for several years, but have lacked the vision for much else.

Herein lies the second battle: Self-esteem.

I need to practically start over and I don't even know how.

There's no one to grade my paper and tell me how to improve.

I'll never win a writing contest or get published in a magazine.

What happened to my vocabulary? Am I dumb now?

Where can I publish? Should I have a website? What if it's for nothing?

Am I even improving? How much do I need to write before I get better?

So much victim complex.

Getting A Grip

I've made a deal with my scared and prideful self. The deal is to force myself to write like I'm already proficient knowing that I'll naturally get better over time, and will indeed, be proficient one day. It's the good old-fashioned cliche of faking it until I make it.

Forcing myself to write is also a promise to myself, that with practice, I'll eventually meet mentors, stumble upon great ideas, and experience the magic of "holy crap, I never expected this opportunity! This is better than I could've imagined."

*Originally published in Medium*