My toughest part of writing
Self critism. One concept which can be one's greatest friend and one's worst enemy at the same time. I tend not to like my writing (specifically blogging and journalling). Not at the start, mind you, or I wouldn't start. Some great idea comes up, and for some reason I decide to sit down and try to put it on paper. Each individual sentence, or phrase, should be perfect -- reflecting precisely the intent it is designed for in a grammatically and spell-proof manner. By the time my great ideas have finally begun to take form, I'm already tired of them. It's too cliche. There isn't anything original here. Everybody already knows this. People won't like this or that. So, true, part of the problem is thinking too much about how other people might react. But that doesn't seem to be my biggest catch. I'm even too picky about my own journalling.
So what's going on with this? Part of it is probably that I don't have as much interesting material as I once thought, that my ideas weren't quite as interesting. hat's known as the "overconfidence" bias. Putting them on paper just brings me back to reality.
Perhaps this isn't all negative, though. Writing forces me to hammer down my thoughts, fine-tuning the details. Perhaps wrestling with the ideas is the fun part, then the actual truth isn't that interesting, or perhaps not as original as I first believed. Then, being frustrated with my writing could be more of a sign that I have really thought through an issue.
Regardless of why writing becomes discouraging, it doesn't seem to be a good thing, at least not with regards to me putting my thoughts on paper (or on one's and zero's as it were), because it is absolutely the #1 reason why I don't blog/journal more frequently.
For any of you who write at all, do you have this problem? How do you deal with it?