Why you shouldn’t let yourself talk yourself out of writing something

A piece on Medium.com headlined “The power of your writing: Why you should write even if you think nobody is reading” seems to be aimed more at creative writers and personal essayists than journalists, but I think it has some good advice for any writer, and it’s a nice follow-up to yesterday’s post in this space by Michael Schottey.

Writer Winnie Lim addresses some of the top reasons people have for not sitting down and writing and debunks them as myths:

In recent years, I have been advocating to anyone I come across that they should write. Not only should they write, they should publish their writing online for the purpose of sharing it openly with as many people as possible.

“Nobody would read what I write,” was the most typical reaction I would get, followed by various forms of, “My writing is so bad”. Some people don’t feel as self-conscious about the quality of writing, instead they are plagued by other reasons: “I am never inspired enough to write”, or “I have no time to write”.

The good news is that I get these reactions even from the gifted writers I know. The writing paralysis afflicts everybody, not only normals like you and me.

Sportswriters are often writing on assignment, on deadline, reacting to or anticipating scheduled events. Nobody needs to be talked into overcoming their reluctance to write because “nobody would read what I write” when an editor is figuratively leaning on their shoulder waiting to read what they wrote.

But what about that next thing? What about the longer piece you’ve been wanting to write? What about the novel, the screenplay, the personal blog, or even the sports blog with an angle you think is going to be a hit but no existing site is willing to give it a home?

I think Lim’s advice even works on the individual story level. If you’ve been stopping yourself from starting on something, especially if it’s been for one of the reasons Lim cites above, check out what she has to say.