If you hate writing, you might be doing it wrong.
You might also be doing it wrong if you pretend to hate it or think anyone can do it without consistent practice. Leave a comment to join this dialogue and don’t miss today’s writing prompt!
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If you’ve been following me long enough, you already know it’s rare for me to claim that anything is strictly ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ when it comes to creativity and approaches to writing. But today I am making an exception because I do believe if someone says they ‘hate’ writing, especially when it’s hard or challenging for them to do, that they’re probably doing it wrong.
Why?
Because writing isn’t supposed to be easy for anyone. Not even award-winning authors.
Writing also isn’t supposed to be something you master one time then stop practicing altogether if you want to remain good at it or enjoy doing it long-term.
But for some reason, that’s what so many people seem to believe these days— that writing is supposed to be easy. And if it’s not easy for them, then they seem to believe it’s some kind of chore to loathe, outsource, or demean, which is problematic for a ton of obvious and not-so-obvious reasons.
If writing were easy, people wouldn’t be using AI to do it for them for any reason, not even for emails, and they wouldn’t be flocking to social media for writing support systems either (online writing communities are some of the only remaining safe spaces on the internet by the way).
Too many people are confusing speed with quality and value these days and think if writing isn’t always fast and breezy for them to do, that they’re doing it wrong. So, they talk themselves out of liking it and doing it and practicing it, kind of like they do with everything else that’s hard to do, because many people also confuse speed with natural talent instead of diligence and practice.
And what do most people do when they are insecure about their perceived ‘talent’ or lack thereof with anything? They either:
Demean or undermine the thing they wish they were good at so others stop making them feel bad (even if inadvertently) for not being good at the thing they wished they were good at. Because if they claim to hate something, they believe others won’t think they care about it. (This seems to be the most popular option, at least when it comes to writing.)
Avoid the thing they wish they were good at entirely as often as they can, either out of fear or embarrassment.
Try to camouflage and mask their skill level with the thing they wish they were good at by trying to cut corners and copy-pasting others’ work. (This is where the appeal and pitfalls of AI, even plagiarism, come in.)
Dig in and do the work (practice) so that they become good at the thing they wish they were good at.
Admittedly, however, writing is a weird example to consider here because nearly everyone assumes they should automatically be good at writing in the language in which they already speak, even without regular practice. And that might be a fair assumption, though most practiced writers out there know how false and misleading that assumption is and how it can lead many aspiring writers to quit before they ever really get started, before they really give themselves a chance to practice writing. Or worse, how it can convince novice writers they hate writing because it isn’t as easy as they expected it to be. Or, even worse, how it often leads novice or unpracticed writers to use AI instead of stretching their own writing skills.
I could write an entire book on the various ways writing is different from speaking when it comes to how we process our world and everything and everyone else in it. In fact, many writers, philosophers, linguists, psychologists, and neuroscientists already have.
“The difference between speaking and writing is that speaking is a conversation that vanishes into the air—mostly—and writing is a conversation with eternity.” — Joyce Carol Oates
“Talking is altogether against my nature. Whatever I may say is wrong, in my sense. For me, speech robs everything I say of its seriousness and importance. To me it seems impossible that it should be otherwise, since speech is continuously influenced by a thousand external factors and a thousand external constraints. Hence, I am silent not only from necessity, but likewise from conviction. Writing is the only appropriate form of expression for me, and will continue to be so even when we are together.” — Franz Kafka
“The complexity of speech is choreographic—an intricacy of movement. That of writing is crystalline—a denseness of matter.” — Michael Halliday
“We don’t expect that we would produce different words in speech and writing. [But] It’s as though there were two quasi-independent language systems in the brain.” — Brenda Rapp
Essentially, writing forces us to slow down and clarify our thinking and feelings and observations simultaneously, even when we write fiction, in a way that speaking does not. And it is challenging to do all that mental and emotional exercise together, especially when it’s done on a routine basis while learning and exploring the ever-evolving limits of language. Which is what makes it hard and why people avoid doing it or think and say they hate doing it.
Not many people like challenging themselves with things they assume they’re already good at doing, or feel they should already be good at doing, but quickly discover they need more practice doing as soon as they try doing it on a routine basis.
And let’s face it, most people nowadays don’t enjoy thinking critically or learning, or don’t set aside adequate time to do so, which writing original work on a routine basis requires.
Writing is an exercise in critical thinking. Synthesizing thoughts, written words, conversations, ideas, and feelings into something coherent for an intended audience requires reflection and intentionality, which takes time and practice to do authentically and intelligibly. There’s no way around that.
As those who have practiced any skill know, there will be times when you feel like a master at your craft and others when you still feel like a novice, regardless of how long you’ve been practicing your craft. But this push and pull behind your sense of mastery is what indicates you’re challenging yourself the right amount, and that you enjoy learning and exploring the process of your craft as much as you enjoy demonstrating your mastery of it, which will always be evolving in a world in which others also practice your craft and contribute to it.
When you are writing, grappling with your own thoughts and feelings alongside others’ thoughts and feelings alongside the mechanics and built-in leniencies of language, which is ever-evolving, is part of the practice. The practice of writing and ‘doing’ language. A practice that never truly ends or can be mastered fully. Not until people stop making up words and meaning and using language itself. Because language is not static, the practitioners of it can’t be either.
To put it bluntly, you cannot enjoy writing if you don’t accept this truth: A writer will never be ‘done’ learning how to write, as being a writer requires only that one continues practicing learning how to write and what to write and when and why they should write, alongside the ever-evolving timelines of their lives and the mechanics and art of language itself, as long as language and how humans choose to use it evolves.
Those who struggle to accept that truth are people who haven’t discovered the patience it requires to sit and play with language on the page long enough to see how fun and rewarding it can be. Or they view writing as a strictly inborn aptitude or something that should and can be mastered in a few lessons, instead of something that requires diligence and practice. And I believe this impatience is understandable to a certain extent in our need-for-speed, distractible age. But it’s also what leads too many people to believe they hate writing when they may not— because how could someone hate something they never really allow themselves to practice and experience fully in the first place? And how could someone hate writing when they haven’t yet learned to enjoy the ups and downs of the writing process, which is what reaps the true rewards of writing?
As they say, practice makes perfect progress, and progress makes a process worth repeating. And writing is nothing if not a process worth repeating.
