So, it’s been some time since my last blog post. I apologize for that. I was working on something that I wasn’t thrilled about, which I ended up scrapping (I probably took too long to make that decision though). So we ended up with a break in the action. That wasn’t intentional. After that, I ended up hitting a bit of a rough patch, but I’m good now. Up until that though, I was still working hard and writing every day. Those few weeks were still really productive. But my time and focus was used differently.
I’ve talked before about the ebbs and flows of the writing process. And it becomes steadily clearer to me each week. As I’ve mentioned before, I spend my time on four different types of writing: critiques, blogging, fiction, and poetry. In my head, each thing is weighted differently in terms of priority, but it doesn’t always work out the way I intend. The amount of time and focus I spend on each thing differs day by day and week by week. The interesting thing about it though is that you can be doing really well with one aspect of writing, while struggling with another. Or it could all be going well or all be going poorly. For a while it seemed like my fiction writing and my blogging kept switching places. It was almost like I could write a good chapter or write a blog post that I was happy with, but I couldn’t do both concurrently.
It’s possible that I’m just spreading myself too thin, but I’d like to believe that it’s not the case. There are many other writers out there that work on multiple projects at once, some published authors, some not. If people that are much busier than I am can do it, then why can’t I? Truth be told, I’m still relatively new to this, so I think I just haven’t found what works best for me yet. I’m still tinkering around and trying to streamline my process. Unfortunately, as I’ve said before, things haven’t worked out quite the way that I anticipated. You can chalk most of that up to inexperience and setting incorrect expectations. But another part of it was also all that time that I had spent writing in isolation, which unbeknownst to me really hindered my growth.
When I first started writing in earnest in 2020, it started out as just trial and error. Testing out the waters to see if I could do it. I had naively assumed that God-given talent would be enough. If I could form a well-written sentence then I could write a blog post. If I could write a blog post then I could write a chapter. If I could write a chapter then I could write a novel. Technically, all that is true, but it’s not that simple. It takes more than that, which I learned the hard way in 2022. If you really think about it though, why should that come as a surprise? If we believe that the best things in life require maximum effort and dedication, then naturally if we want to excel at anything then we need to learn as much as we can about that topic. That requires you to work on your weaknesses not just your strengths. To also focus on the areas that don’t interest you at all or interest you less. To spend time on the tedious as well as the entertaining. But most importantly, you need to step out of your comfort zone. You need to ask yourself tough questions. You need to try new things. To change up your approach if necessary.
For two and a half years, I did none of that. I cruised along thinking that I was ready for this, when in fact I was nowhere near. But pressure and expectations were low, which gave me the freedom to focus on writing consistently. Which at the very least was a good first step. For half a decade or more before that I blogged on and off, binge writing at times, but going through long periods of inactivity in between. At least now I was writing regularly in my free time either after work or on the weekends, which was good. But I was trying to crank through as many posts and chapters as I could. I valued speed over quality, which is somewhat ironic considering the length of time spent on some of those posts. I hadn’t yet learned what it meant to, “kill your darlings.” Thus I edited lightly without a keen enough eye. I grew attached to sentences and paragraphs, which led me on tangents that caused my writing style to read like stream of consciousness at times. Resulting in posts that were far too long and likely quite boring to read.
I’ve always had a knack for wordplay and sentence structure, so I’d like to think that I started out with a higher base level of talent. Whether or not that’s actually true isn’t all that important though. Just because I had that in my back pocket didn’t mean that I was a good writer, let alone a great one. All it meant was that I could craft a sentence—nothing more, nothing less. In the first three years I was learning how to write, and writing more consistently, but I wasn’t improving enough as a writer or as a storyteller. I was nowhere near the level I needed to be at, and I wasn’t progressing towards that, which I completely failed to realize. That’s because I hadn’t yet stepped out of my comfort zone or started taking enough risks, as much as I wanted to believe otherwise.
Instead, I was already falling into bad habits, walking into traps, and blundering into rookie mistakes. But what did I know? I had never written creatively before aside from an ungraded course I had taken my freshman year of college. The purpose of that class wasn’t even to learn how to write, it was geared towards bonding with other freshmen! And outside of a required writing class I had taken that same year I had never critiqued peer work. That being said, the only writing experience I really had were papers and projects I had written for various classes, and the only feedback I’d gotten were the grades and comments from teachers and professors. Not much of anything to say the least. But that didn’t stop me from developing an inflated ego. Not my finest moment.
What I needed was a kick in the pants. Something to knock me off my high horse. I wasn’t some fancy big-shot writer. I was an amateur, same as everyone else. I thought I could make it work, but I hadn’t started from the ground up, so didn’t have a firm foundation. I didn’t have the right mindset. I knew better though, didn’t I? I should’ve taken the same lessons I had learned in therapy and applied them to this new hobby. My therapist had taught me to be even-keeled, not to be too high or too low, to reset to zero when needed. She had helped me become confident in myself while remaining humble. She had shown me how to act like I knew nothing, and that there was everything left to learn. That’s where I should’ve started—with no preconceptions, without conceit. I needed to learn how to write well before I could claim to be a writer.
No wonder then that things didn’t work out as planned. No wonder then that I found myself burnt out eight months after I quit my day job. I didn’t have what it took to live the life I wanted to live. And thus, I found myself in therapy once again. And as tough as it was to uncover things about my past yet again, it did me a whole lot of good. Without it I never would’ve found a writing community, and my writing never would’ve improved. As I’ve said before, the first four to five months of posting chapters for critique were difficult. But again, what did I expect? I had never done it before, so therefore didn’t have an accurate gauge on my writing ability. I needed to be put in my place. I needed someone to tell me the honest truth: you’re not the writer that you think you are—not yet. I needed to be shown the areas that needed improvement.
Some writers were nice about it, and gave me constructive criticism. Others were more unpleasant. Of course, the former is so much more delightful to deal with, and leaves you feeling good about yourself. You need those types of people to help you maintain your confidence. But the latter was just as necessary for me. Without hearing the harsh reality I’m not sure if I would’ve been able to get to where I needed to get to. I needed to be broken down and reminded to keep my ego in check. I needed to know how I matched up with other writers. I needed to understand that I wasn’t anywhere close to where I thought I was, but I could get there in time if I put in the effort. I had to rediscover my humility. Without it I was nothing and no one—just a pretender.
Just someone who thought he knew how to write, but didn’t really. They say, “it takes a million words before you’re able to write something of good quality.” Early on, I would’ve scoffed at that notion, but I don’t think they’re wrong. I’ve been writing almost every day since 2020, but I consider 2023 my year one. This was the year I came into my own. The year I discovered my writing style. The year I finally knew what my story was about. The year I finally understood who my characters are. The year I found out where I stack up. The year I found a mutually beneficial writing partnership (which will soon grow into a circle of three). I’ve called myself a writer before, and I’ve felt like a writer before, but now I can say with certainty that I am a writer. I can finally put my money where my mouth is, because only now am I able to write well. I’ve learned how to write, so I just need to keep on keeping on. The only way I fail is if I stop.
JHUMWRITES—A Mental Health Blog 