…before I over-complicate the act of writing, again

At the risk of sounding like AI slop right out of the gate with an “it’s not this, it’s that” framing, what you’re about to read here is not a productivity guru’s ultimate life hack or a heroic tale of overcoming my latest and greatest character weakness; it is a peek behind the curtain of someone who loves to write but often tells themselves that they “don’t have anything inspired to write about” (despite having a whole book outlined that could be started any day now). 

That someone is me, and tonight is the perfect setting for this on-the-fly piece. 

It is currently 11:12 PM on a cool Saturday night in New Zealand as I dictate these very words into a Google Doc¹. I have just slipped on my shoes, thrown on a dark grey oversized cardigan, and headed out the door for a late-night walk and talk into my phone.

Last week I hadn’t published anything and I told myself that’s okay. However, I obviously hadn’t believed what I said because it’s been a week later and I’m still thinking about what I hadn’t done—and feeling needlessly anxious about not doing it again as if I’ll “fall behind” on a race I didn’t mean to enter… again.

I wanted to write something yesterday, but I prioritised other things instead. I wanted to write something this morning, but errands got in the way, so I decided to save the story for an upcoming Perfectly Cromulent Podcast with Nav Rao. So here I go, circling the cul-de-sac down the lane, talking to myself as the speech-to-text translator does its digital magic, saying both a lot and nothing at the same time. 

I know that it doesn’t really matter if I do or don’t post anything. My day job isn’t on the line. The roof over our heads isn’t going to suddenly spring a leak because I didn’t click Publish. This ‘article’ and the next are unlikely to cause a dramatic uplift in my creative or financial future, and it wouldn’t impact my standard of living in the slightest if my subscriber count dropped because I wasn’t “doing enough”. I know that writing brings me joy, regardless of how often I seem to avoid it. Although, I also know that each post I don’t make is one post that isn’t getting me any further—sometimes I feel like I know too much for my own good.

This is about the internal struggle against myself; I want to do a thing, but I’m great at finding a dozen reasons not to do it and a dozen more ways to make it more difficult than it needs to be. Perhaps you’re familiar with the feeling? 

I always say I want to write more, but I’ll often tell myself I don’t have the time or energy to get ‘into’ it right now as if it’s going to drain me or become a three-hour slog of formatting, editing, and sharing… because that’s what I’ve too often turned the act of Writing into. What helped me get started tonight was noticing how many of the Substacks I gravitate towards are full of first-person perspectives and simple stories about their lives, and I wanted to try it on for size. I wanted to write something without any greater agenda, and boy, does this extraordinarily meandering, self-reflective post seem to be achieving that goal.

How interesting that when I started walking about 15-minutes ago, I was worried that I’d go another weekend without writing anything new because I didn’t have a burning or “meaningful” topic I was eager to explore, and yet the existence of this page proves otherwise. The key was going verbal for a change, and letting my mouth go.

Has this been useful? It’s certainty no entry in a bestselling self-help book to be referenced for years to come, but the process of getting something down onto this digital paper has been useful for me. And, in the time it’s taken to record these stream-of-conscious thoughts, I’ve been able to add an additional 3,000 steps to my total step count for the day (13.5K)—what a happy little bonus. 

“What would this look like if it were easy?” — Tim Ferriss

It turns out that writing what I’m feeling in the moment is far easier and quicker than trying to write artistically rhythmic or profoundly publishable as I had been known to attempt. Silly me, Trix are for kids. I’ve held the answer key for years, yet ignored it.

Somebody remind me to do this more often, and by somebody, I mean Me. I need to remember to write what’s on my mind more often, and be more comfortable letting it loose as is. I can’t make anything happen if I hold myself back from it.

1. Well, it was before midnight when I thought I’d be done. That is, until I still somehow ended up revising this whole thing for another two hours after I pulled the dictated Google Doc up on my computer for publishing… I’ll learn how to get out of my own way one day. At least I had fun doing it. ↩︎