The Pressure to Write
The pressure to write is so paralyzing because as a writer you question every word, every keystroke, every punctuation mark, and it never ends. You can write the same sentence five times over and in different styles and it still wouldn’t sound the way it does in your head.
There’s so much power in words and I am reminded of it every time I sit down to journal, write an essay, or even jot a note down. Once the words are set in stone, that’s it. It’s like words are infinite and even though you could erase or delete what you have said, you still said it.
Language is probably one of the most beautiful art forms that we have. How crazy is it that so many people can be affected by just a simple phrase, paragraph, or just two letters.
I usually don’t ponder much about my impact as a writer because I still see myself as the preteen Sydney who would spend her free period during school to write fictional stories. That version of me never viewed herself as a writer, but just a person with an active imagination who wanted to emulate the books that she loved so much. The current version now writes for a living and even studies writing for academia, and she still doesn’t see herself as a writer but just a person with a lot of thoughts and has nowhere else to put them.
My words have power or at least some kind of impact because I wouldn’t have made it as far as I have if they didn’t. Realistically, I don’t spend all of my time writing. I mostly think and speak only to myself (and others if the words are too potent to keep inside). Writing has both liberated and exhausted me. It has been both a creative outlet and a daily chore.
The hardest part about being a writer is writing. To be honest, I can’t think of one writer who doesn’t doubt what they put on the page. I’m sure they exist but I have yet to converse with one. Art is hard and I don’t mean that jokingly. It takes a lot out of you to bear your soul on a piece of paper or Google Doc. Once you release it into the world, it is no longer just yours. Everyone you know and don’t know gets to have a piece of it as well.
I believe that is my biggest dilemma of not wanting to share due to public perception. I hate being perceived by people and I also hate having my art perceived as well. Especially when you share online, you never know what people are truly thinking. Because of that I am learning to make friends with my ego and not being stingy with everything that I write.
I often question whether or not I am good enough to be considered a writer. There are so many types of writing that I do that it’s hard to box me in one niche, I want to write everything. I write better than I speak most of the time and my words don’t feel as if they make sense unless they are put down on paper.
Sure I have the writing credits for things but what actually classifies you as a writer? Will I feel like one when I publish the book? Or when I see my name in a major publication like TIME or Vanity Fair? Or when I see my writing be used as inspiration for a tv show or song?
Who is to say that I need those accolades to consider myself what I have been doing for the past ten years? Anyone who writes anything is a writer. Anyone who makes any type of art is an artist. Who am I to gate keep? Who is anyone to?
If anything we should celebrate those who choose to participate in the arts, even if what they create doesn’t fit the societal norms of what makes a great artist. Encouragement can go a long way, especially when it comes to sparking creativity in young minds. I will forever be grateful to the English teacher from the school that my dad worked at who read my first ever short story. Receiving feedback from her about what she liked about the story and what I could improve on gave me the validation and confirmation that I needed to even consider writing a viable hobby, let alone career choice.
It’s important to nurture and inspire others. People need inspiration, now more than ever. As much as we can make fun of the think pieces on the internet, I think it is admirable how people are compelled enough to take the ideas they have about the content currently being pushed out into the world. The internet has come so far that everyday people now have the ability to become writers themselves and make profitable content off of it.
Growing up, I always heard the remarks about how being a writer isn’t a viable career, that only few people actually gain success from it, and that it is such a broad career path that people don’t take it seriously. I had a lot of hesitation to express that I wanted to be a writer or that I am one because of that fear of having to explain exactly what it is that I do and how I am managing to make anything out of it.
I even went through a period between last year and the beginning of this year where I didn’t have the desire to write anything. It seemed too daunting of a task to want to sit down and put out my thoughts. There was too much pressure to have my writing be perfect or good enough to appease whatever audience I created in my head. While I am slowly coming out of that pit, I still catch myself hesitating to write because I just want it to be good. At least good according to my standards.
Comparison truly is the thief of joy and as an artist it can be the reason for the death of your creativity. But sometimes there can be a really thin line between being inspired by someone else’s writing and wanting to compare your own writing to it. Having to train myself to not be envious of the way someone else is able to convey and structure their thoughts is a challenge within itself.
What I have come to learn is that as a writer, artist, creative person, you will never be truly ready to create nor will you be truly ready to distribute. I sometimes view artistic creation as an act of birthing and hear me out. While I have never personally given birth, the process of utilizing your energy and putting it towards creating something that is supposed to outlive you and allowing it to be shared with the rest of the world is one of the most vulnerable acts of being a human.
I always thought it was funny whenever I would hear an artist say that their album/book/movie/painting/etc was their baby, but it really is. You spend so much time with something, watching it go from idea to prototype to rough draft to final draft to being published and/or sold and used by others; just like a mother going through the process of conceiving, birthing, and raising their child, you are doing the same to your art. You should never discredit your own creations, just like you should never discredit your own offspring.
The pressure to write is wild because there should be no pressure at all. Your first or second or fifteenth draft will never be right. Even when it is done and edited and out in the world, it will never be perfect. As a writer, you can never stop editing. I guess that can be a metaphor for life, since as a human you can never stop growing. There is no finish point when it comes to art, you have to define that point. Just like with personal growth, success, and healing, it is truly up to you when you have reached your true potential.
