I don’t know how many times I have to tell myself this until it sticks: I have to be more consistent with writing to truly see the results. It’s something that I very well know. It rings in my head nearly all the time. I have no idea why I still find it difficult to make it work. I guess that’s what it means to be human. Anyway, I’m not willing to give up trying so here we go again.
My major problem with writing to post daily or consistently on Medium is that I continue to hold myself to high standards. The truth is that I always have a stream of thoughts that I really wouldn’t mind to put into words. But most times, thoughts are incoherent and you have to do a lot of work to separate the wheat from the chaff. Sometimes, I don’t mind the work if I believe that the results will take a defined shape. Other times, which happens to be most of the time, I don’t believe in the thoughts enough to appeal to the reader.
Writing is hard work. It requires a lot of discipline and commitment. Two things I seem to sufficiently lack. On some days, I try to make it work. I sit behind my laptop, whip up words, and successfully set them up in a way that entangles the reader. I don’t want to do all of that work on some days. There’s always an urge to write. There’s not always an urge to painstakingly sift the superfluous parts that are emitted from the universe of my thoughts. So I spend most of my days trying to give more priority to “quality thoughts.”
There’s also a part of me that strongly believes in raw writing. In writing the words as they come. Whether they make sense to me or not. This part of me is suppressed by the fear of rationality as well as my human nature to conform. I keep asking myself, how do you make something meaningful of your career if you don’t stick to a pattern or if you are so recusant that no one can relate to your writings or if your thoughts are so nonsensical they don’t catch anyone’s interest?
Again, I guess that’s what it means to be humans. These questions, there are no definite answers for them. I allow myself shy away from my fountain of creativity because I can’t help but think things have to be done in a certain way. Even though I like to pride myself on how peculiar I am. As an overthinker, I have a lot to thoughts skittering about in my head. I don’t see why I cannot share these thoughts with people, especially if they find some of them relatable.
Another reason why I find it difficult to consistently post my writing is the vulnerability attached to the gift of writing. I’m continually chastising my own work, looking for loopholes all the darned time, comparing my work to that of writers I look up to, hating my current position in life. All of these things distract from me doing the real work. I wish I could just write and publish and not have to worry about stats, about progress, about the quality of my work (if at all I’m doing this, it shouldn’t stop me from writing).
So, yeah, I’m willing to keep trying. All I want is for my Medium page to serve as a diary, to do what my Twitter used to be meant for, to be a canvas for me to write down my thoughts, opinions, essays about music, movies, the direction my life is going, basically anything. I want to be remembered for telling stories, stories that mirror my emotions, whether positive or negative. I want to consistently show up for readers. To be there in their time of need, in their time of loneliness, of sadness, of happiness, of bewilderment.
As much as I know I can’t post everyday, I would try to be more consistent with posting. Might be three times a week or five times. Might be twice daily. I’m going to be more consistent with publishing regularly, regardless of the (in)coherence of my thoughts.
By the way, I publish a bi-weekly newsletter on hawyenzo.substack.com on Afrobeats. You should join our community if you haven’t.
