On writing as an obligation

What you are reading is just my latest attempt at a blog and aspirations of regular writing. My life is littered with the remenants of unfinished projects, including multiple started-then-discarded blogs. I choose a host and a platform, struggle to write a couple of posts, and then abandon it. I could never understand why this could or should be the case, until I came across this post by Slava Akhmechet.

A few days ago I realized something. I don’t like writing.

I realized it because I found creative energy to work on programming projects again, and I experience writing programs differently from how I experience having to write. Even the turn of phrase "having to write" betrays my disposition toward the craft.

This so perfectly captures my experience. I like the idea of writing. I even love the idea of writing. I daily enjoy reading great writing, and imagine myself writing similar great articles. I don't even believe it is a skill issue as my schooling and professional history has declared I am able to put words on page competently enough. However, after multiple failed attempts I have to accept that its just not going to happen.

When I’m very excited to build products or just program computers for the joy of programming, I dread going to sleep and every part of me cannot wait to wake up and write code again. I’ve never felt that about writing. Writing has always been a chore. I think I’ve known this all along, but have never been able to admit this to myself until now.

This is how I feel about building software and writing. When building software, I'm excited to get started, I can measure progress, and definitively test that it works and I'm done. Writing seems so vague and never-finished in comparison. By the time I reach the last 10% of writing a piece, I hate it and would rather bin it than release it in such an unfinished form.

I will continue writing. When I have something important to say, I’ll go through the pain necessary for me to say it.

I don't know if I will continue writing. The mere presence of this blog haunts me as an unfulfilled obligation. Not all of us were meant to be writers, and I think it's ok to be honest about our weaknesses.

Go and read Slava's full article.