I’ve always wanted to be good at writing. Through many years of falling down internet rabbit holes, I’ve come across articles that changed my core beliefs, articles that have had me struggling to breathe because I’m snort laughing too hard, and articles that have broken my heart before piecing it back together again. I’ve always wanted that skill – to be able to make people feel pure, raw emotion through my words.

Back in 2021 I bought a domain, web hosting and told myself that I was going to start writing a blog, build an audience and become a great writer. 2 recipes, a satirical-meta post about blogging and four years of procrastination later, I have achieved none of these things. I’m not willing to admit defeat, and the desire to become a good writer is still there.

Understanding my failings

If I don’t understand why I failed the first time around, I’m doomed to repeat history.  I spent last week’s morning commutes staring gormlessly at the people opposite me on the tube, reflecting on why I wasn’t able to build a good writing routine.

I’ve boiled it down to three things: 

1. Not having enough time: Admittedly a convenient excuse for all thirty-somethings in a city – I get very busy juggling work, regular exercise and a social calendar.  Writing is typically the first thing that gets dropped when my to-do list has more items than I have time for in a day.
   
2. Not having a good topic: I struggle to decide on what to write about.  One of the goals of writing more is to produce content that people actually want to read.  I will come up with ideas, but lose confidence that anyone will actually want to read about the topics I come up with.
   
3. Refusing to settle: When I finally decide on a topic to write about, I start writing a draft, decide the opening paragraph isn’t good enough, delete everything and start again.  This cycle continues until I give up and slam my laptop shut in frustration.  I want my readers to be engaged, interested and moved by my writing.  Anything less than that is not good enough to make it onto paper.

Doing it Write Right

I think it’s time to try again. This time, I have a plan to address each of the excuses reasons for failing.  My hope is that if I put in the right guardrails, I will build a writing habit (albeit 3 years from my original target). Here is how I plan to address each issue from last time:

Spend as little time as possible

I started reading atomic habits late last year (ironically, I didn’t finish the book because I failed to build a reading habit).  One of the concepts that resonated was “completing routines”.  Routines are a set of low effort activities that are designed to be small and achievable, with the goal of priming someone to complete the actual habit they want to build.  For example, if I want to become a runner, the daily routine to prime me for that might be “put on my running clothes and shoes”.  Once completed, I’m ready to go for a run, so I may as well go.

I’ve created a routine to build a writing habit – write something during the first half of my work commute. This is typically dead-time anyway, so it’s the perfect way to make sure that I write at least once a week.  What I write and how much doesn’t matter, as long as I’m building a routine that flexes those writing muscles frequently.

Don’t come up with any writing ideas

To solve this, I’ve decided to delegate the problem away. Seeing as the root cause of this issue is writing articles that people want to read, I’ve applied Occam’s razor to the problem, and have decided to crowdsource topics to write about.  I’ve started asking friends and family the following question:

If we sat down for dinner one day and I told you about my life experiences, beliefs or something I know about — what would you want to listen to me talk about?

The answers I’m getting are going into a list, and all reasonable suggestions will be used as writing topics for future articles. (To the friend that suggested I write about “my emotional journey with a penis pump”, I’m sorry but your suggestion hasn’t made the cut).

Embrace mediocrity

Rather than letting perfection be the enemy of good (or even “acceptable”), I’m going to accept that the quality of my writing will start out pretty low.  Through practice, repetition and adjustment, I’m wagering that the quality will begin to improve. My plan is to trust in the process of consistency rather than trying to come out of the gate as a Desi Shakespeare. 

Thanks for reading

So all being said and done, this is my very public commitment to try and write more.  If you got this far without closing your browser, maybe I’m already on my way to becoming this generation’s J.R.R. Tolkein! What’s more likely is that I’ve emotionally manipulated you into visiting my website.  Either way, as a thank you, let me know what you want me to write about in the comments!