On Not Writing

Ana Hein // Blog Writer

I am not a good writer.

This is not to say that I don’t think what I write is any good, though like most creative people, I tend to dislike whatever it is I’ve made after about a week. I like to think I can turn a phrase and write a funny joke every now and then. No, when I talk about being a bad writer, I’m not talking about writing bad things but being bad at the act of writing itself. 

There are very few things that qualify one as a writer. It’s not selling millions of copies or having a literary agent or even getting published at all. The only requirement is writing. 

This is the part I have trouble with. 

I don’t write. Well, this is an exaggeration; I’m writing right now, otherwise this essay would not exist, but this is the rare exception. Let me rephrase: I don’t write habitually. I prefer to wait until inspiration strikes or I am in the right mood to put pen to paper or fingers to keys. As a result, I can go for weeks on end without putting down a single word. 

When I force myself to write – to vomit up as many words as I can for the sake of “progress” – I just end up hating whatever my brain churns up. I find that the sentences don’t flow, and the words hurt my ears. It just doesn’t have that same level of shine as the pieces I’m truly passionate about have; at least, that’s how they read to me. 

But when I am into the work, my god, I am truly in love. I write manically for the day, for sometimes days on end. I focus all my thoughts and energy into bringing the piece into existence. When not writing, I go over sentences and ideas in my head; I am never not thinking about it. I go all in. Recently, I wrote over half of a 7,000-word essay in twenty-four-hours.

And I think you can see that passion reflected in the work itself. It feels more vibrant, more alive, and just overall better. I’m trying to justify my bad habits, I am aware, but it’s the truth.

There is, however, one empirical way to tell the difference between a piece I’m passionate about and one I force myself to get through: the former is finished. Another of my bad writing habits is that I hardly ever finish anything I start. As of right now, I have two plays, seven essays, three short stories, countless poem scraps, and the first 2,000 words of two different novels set on the back burner (I don’t have the heart to say abandoned). I lose steam, I psyche myself out, and then I set it aside, to be finished months later, most of the time never. 

It’s not that I don’t enjoy writing; I do! Intensely! When I’m in the zone, I can lose myself in the language for hours; I feel at peace in the world when it’s going smoothly. 

It’s at the slightest hint of stalling out that it all turns to shit. I can be rolling along happily one minute, bursting at the mouth with metaphors and symbols, when one single word trips me up, and I have to slam my laptop shut. 

I want my writing to be good; that’s what it all comes down to. When I write when I’m “in the mood,” I think whatever I’m spitting out must come from the mouth of God (though this is not the essay to talk about my inflated ego). When I go back and edit it, I realize my first draft was, as all first drafts are required to be, utter crap. But it doesn’t matter at this point, because I’m fixing it, making it a better version of itself. And then it happens again on the next draft and the next, until finally, it is actually “good,” whatever “good” means. 

If I don’t think what I’m working on is good, I stop. Simple as that. 

I’m trying to be better at writing. I’m trying to find more projects that I’m excited about so that the writing actually gets done and use the bad habit to my advantage, if you will. I don’t think I’ll ever be one of those writers who consistently churns out 2,000 words a day, Stephen King’s writing advice be damned, but I’m trying to write more consistently. I still don’t write every single day, but as of now, I put something down more or less every week or so. 

I don’t know what it’ll take for me to be a better writer instead of working around the problem like I do now. Maybe writing full time? Maybe not having any other responsibilities to worry about? Maybe being dead? Who knows? 

But I can definitely say that even if I am the worst writer in the world, I still want to be a writer. There is honestly nothing else I would rather do with my life. Nothing makes me feel as wonderful and complete as writing. It’s one of the things I love most in the world, as corny and clichéd as that sounds. I’d much rather be a bad writer than give up writing all together.