Have you ever felt the paralysis of analysis? The inability to move forward because you don’t feel like you’re 100% ready? That’s how I’ve felt for the majority of my life about writing.
It wasn’t for a lack of confirmation. Nearly every time I would write something, I’d get positive feedback. Shoot, even the negative feedback confirmed that what I’d written had been done in a way that was worthy of an alternate response.
But I could never keep at it. Writing consistently was difficult and felt forced because I was worried about not saying the right thing in the right way. I wanted to display my gift perfectly, and yet I only wanted to craft my gift privately.
There’s a place for that. Rehearsal rooms, journals, and other outlets where we can dare greatly without the risk of worldwide public humiliation. But no matter how long we practice something privately, there comes a time that we have to display what we’ve prepared publicly.
Seth Godin does that every day, and it was a quote from him that I read at the end of 2020 that inspired me to finally begin working on my craft in a more public and consistent way. Thank you, Seth, for the wisdom of simply writing something every single day. I am a better writer today than I was 237 days ago when this journey began.
And thank you to all who continue to respond to what I write each day. I’ll leave you with the same quote that got me going, and I pray that it motivates you to begin risking in front of others in order to master the gifts God gave you for them.
“Writer’s block isn’t hard to cure. Just write poorly. Continue to write poorly, in public, until you can write better. Do it every day. Every single day. If you know you have to write something every single day, even a paragraph, you will improve your writing. If you’re concerned with quality, of course, then not writing is the problem, because zero is perfect and without defects. Shipping nothing is safe.” (Seth Godin)
