Why Embracing Your Demons Is The Only Way To Overpower Writer’s Agony
By: Tarun Kohli
Tags: Reading, Writing, Writing Tips, Writers On Writing, Writing Life

Photo by Adrian Swancar on Unsplash

It’s easy wanting to be a writer. But it’s stupendously hard to sit through the ordeal of crafting a compelling read. Something so riveting that keeps readers gliding effortlessly from one sentence to another. Something that strikes such an emotional chord that they hypnotically nod their head in agreement while devouring every single word.

To achieve this level of mastery in non-fiction writing is a task of biblical proportions. The writing has to be meaningful and creative and profound. And these very things, especially the one about sounding profound, make writing astonishingly hard.

The need for sounding profound plays devious psychological tricks, you know. You want the readers to walk away learning something new. Or at least learn a new perspective about an old culturally pervasive idea.

And this self-inflicted cognitive burden critiques and banishes ideas the moment they are conceived. Even when the ideas are important, you restrain yourself lest you were to say something banal or, something that doesn’t resonate with the readers.

Gosh! What if I was to make a fool of myself? What if it turns to be drivel? Worse, what if I get trolled? These are some serious stress inducing rumination that can make even a Stoic melt to a squishy ball of slime. Then what chance do muggles like me have to quell these dementor-like-questions?! (Yes, I know. I know only wizards and witches can see dementors, not muggles.)

It’s the same GroundHog day affair that I live through whenever inspiration strikes — I write the idea down on an index card and commit to creating the piece after my work day is over. Like a teenager inflamed with first love, I get seduced through the day by the idea of creating my masterpiece — I visualize my fingers floating over the keyboard creating soul stirring words like I was Mozart reincarnated. I see myself as an artist, and the idea my muse, to create the most invigorating story ever told.

But when I sit down to write, the words don’t come to roost — in a twisted tale of fate, my muse turns into an estranged bedfellow. Even when I’m able to string along a few words, it seems so vapid that I delete them out of judgment. The writing process that was supposed to be invigorating becomes a sheer purgatory of self esteem.

I have now realized after a few hair tearing meltdowns (how I would love to blame my balding to it, but who am I kidding!) that the problem is not with my writing but the expectations that I put on myself. The negative visualization results in a crushing assault on my self esteem leaving me debilitated. And this obsession of how will it be received by others swaps the exhilaration with the exhaustion.

I wish it wasn’t like that, and we could be in a non-judgmental state — pursue writing for the sake of sharing our thoughts with the world. I wish we wouldn’t put pressure on ourselves to be “interesting” or “profound” all the time.

And philosophically speaking, couldn’t interesting for one be completely unimaginative for another? Then why tie yourself in knots imagining the worst possible outcome?

The best writing happens in the moments when you don’t have any ulterior motive of sharing ideas to become famous, or to sound wise. Or, when you are not flagellating yourself with the mediocrity of your perceived writing skills. Or, when you are not tearing yourself apart with comparison of others brilliance.

The best writing happens when you are free from all this pressure. When you internalize that writing isn’t about being perfect but settling in for perfectly imperfect. In that flow, fingers work their magic over the keyboard to morph thoughts into sparkling black ink poetry over the serene white background of a Google Doc.