I don't know what to write.

I got the story idea while attending one of the Toastmasters club meetings. A speaker named Edgar spoke on a topic: "I don't have anything to speak on." In this speech, Edgar talked about procrastination. The central theme was how he procrastinated speech preparation until the last moment.

I thought of taking a comical jibe at my incapabilities to release quality content. I have too many ideas; if I could post half of them, I would publish at least three articles daily. Instead, there are times I struggle to publish three articles a month.

Quality not Quantity

It's disheartening when I can't publish at regular intervals. To justify, it may be there is a greater focus on quality. If that's true, why isn't this quality not translating viewership? Even after writing for five years not one article has crossed 50K views.

I am a software engineer by chance. Software engineers work on things that make life more complicated than it already is. Hence, content on programming comes out of my career of more than 15 years. My famous blogs are also from the field of software engineering and programming. Even my worst blogs on software development get average attention. Writing on programming techniques is not as fun as writing on other topics though.

Process of Writing

As any writer, there is a process I follow for my blogs. The process is to be on the lookout for ideas. Once there are ideas, I wait for life, and luck gives me time and energy. With time and energy to move away from insignificant distractions, writing gets priority.

In the past, I used to convert my Toastmaster's speeches into stories. Now, it's the other way around. Speeches from other speakers generate ideas for blogging. In summary, there are more ideas now but the central problem remains the same.

Too many ideas, and not much content.

Why is writing so hard?

If creating content on these ideas is hard, why do I invest so much energy in writing? Earnings of 20$ per month do not justify the desperation for relentless blogging. It only covers my Grammarly subscription. The real reason is - publishing stories is all about writing my garbage.

Publishing stories is a time-consuming process, but journaling is not. My real motivation for blogging is my never-ending love for journaling. I call myself a negative person who understands the value of a positive lifestyle. Journaling allows me to work on this transition.

I prefer dumping all my negativity in my journal. Writing helps me to convert that negativity into something positive. Most of my articles are coming out of these journals. It still does not answer the original question. I don't know what to write. Why is writing so hard?

Writing is not complicated; editing and fixing grammatical mistakes is. Yes, we have tools like Grammarly and Hemminway, but they are still time-consuming. Managing time for writing on top of my full-time job impacts my sleep. I get less time to sleep.

I need 10 hours of sleep daily. My sleeping patterns do not do my writing aspirations any good. There is no way to change my sleeping patterns. It's my first love.

Hence, the next question is – Why must we do this much editing? Is there a way to save time in editing? Editing is difficult because writing with honesty and integrity is not enough. Readers should understand your content with ease. Your content should appeal to the reader.

Let's run

In summary, I don't have a problem in generating ideas. There are more ideas than what my little brain can process. My writing aspirations are not for any fancy financial expectations.

I love to journal; these journals translate into blogs through magical intervention. In short, the idea behind writing is to channel my negative energies in the hope that people will like them. In essence, my biggest problem is presentation.

Hence, running through an idea sounds fascinating. There is a subject to write on. Time is of the essence, hence keeping a timer for each revision could help. There needs to be a smooth flow for my brain to have mercy and generate content. Hence, I kept half an hour train journey to finish my draft during a train journey. The draft smells terrible. It has typos, extra long sentences, and no respect for grammar. The process should be like journaling. The story does not have to be more than 800 words. It will solve the purpose of being able to motivate myself.

The next step is to set a time for running Grammarly against it. This is the second round. Grammarly takes care of spelling and grammar. The most painful part of this round is to drop sentences with passive voice.

I need two more revisions for this story. The third round is to trim long sentences. Hemingway Editor is the hero here. The target is Grade 6 & below. Most time allowed is 30 minutes.

Feedback from a close friend is the motivation behind the last round of editing. The time allowed for this round is 30 minutes. I have a tendency to start many sentences with 'I'. The reason behind this tendency is the necessity to trim extra-long sentences. It makes my writing monotonous. To quote my friend, over usage of 'I' makes my writing look childish. It gives the impression that the writer is self-obsessed.

Conclusion

I started this article with nothing but a title. There were four rounds of editing. The train journey to and from work took care of the first two rounds. An hour in the evening will handle the last two rounds. My story is ready for publishing.

I will share some snapshots from different rounds of editing to show results.