What Does Writing Everyday Feels Like?
There are more than 250 essays published on this blog. As of today, I have been writing and publishing for 175 days straight. I never thought I would do this with such consistency. I have written essays in the past, but never with this magnitude or discipline.
Never before have I been so experimental with my writing style, or so personal with my thought process. Some of the most intimate essays I have written exist here. Regardless of the readership I get, loyal or otherwise, and despite the fact that there is no real way to measure it, I continue to write.
One might wonder what the point of writing every day is if there is no readership, no feedback because there is no comment section, and no algorithm pushing it forward. The point I have realised after writing for more than six months is that it forces you to think with such precision and sharpness that it sets you apart from others.
There are essays I wrote that are a product of stream-of-consciousness thinking. I begin with an argument and then try to resolve that argument throughout the essay. In such pieces I am exploring my own ideas and predicaments as they unfold.
There are also essays where I am direct. These are usually the product of contemplation that has already happened beforehand. Because of that, they read faster and more decisively. And then there are essays that are deeply personal, where the tone becomes conversational, as though I am speaking to a friend who might share my dilemma.
So I can conclude that writing every day does have its merit. But when people begin to write, they worry about what to write about. What topics can they cover? Will they run out of ideas? I do not know if I will ever run out of things to say or thoughts to explore. So far I am doing well. My mind is still flooded with ideas and reflections, so much so that I have stopped writing them down in notes.
The paradox of writing is that the more you write, the more you want to write, and the more you are able to write. However, one of the most beautiful aspects of writing is how it sharpens your thinking. No matter what style of writing you prefer, and I have experimented with most of them, they all force you to examine your own thoughts and dive deeper into them.
There are thoughts that made me uncomfortable while writing them. An essay like Whisky I Did Not Drink made me squirm in my seat when I was about to publish it. Yet I published it anyway. I have always written honestly, and on the day I scheduled that essay, that was precisely how I was feeling. So I wrote it in a way that was raw, but still readable.
Confronting your ideas is as important as executing them. There are tendencies within you that are self-destructive. If you never confront them, never examine their source, you will never understand why your identity feels fractured or why you repeatedly arrive at different outcomes than others.
When I go back and read my old essays, they remind me of what I was going through at that time and what sources I had identified for those struggles. I also examine whether my beliefs have changed. Most of the essays I have written are about what I felt in a particular moment, or what I believed about an idea at that time. They are never meant to represent the ultimate truth.
One does need a certain degree of writing skill. Being well read generally develops that skill naturally. Expose yourself continuously to good writing and, in all likelihood, you will begin to understand how to express an idea and how to establish a natural flow in your writing. Reading fiction helps here, but it is not mandatory. You can learn this from almost anything you read.
Vocabulary is not as important as people assume. What matters is using the right word for the right context and the right situation. There is no need to be pompous by using unnecessarily complicated words. Use the words that best capture what you are trying to describe and the context in which you are describing it.
To summarise for you, my fellow reader, why you should write and how you should write: writing is the only way you can confront your thoughts without becoming defensive about them. You can go as deep as you want in writing without losing the chain of thought, and you can always trace those thoughts back.
To improve the quality of your writing, expose yourself to good writing, whatever form that may take for you. Keep in mind that you eventually become the average of what you consume, so choose wisely. Vocabulary is like a bullet, and context is the gun. Any bullet can work. You simply have to place it in the right gun.