I wasn't going to write an article on this topic, but after writing and deleting about 5 others, it seemed only fitting. For those of you who have followed me for the last 2 years, clearly my articles have been extremely inconsistent. School, work, and other activities get in the way, but a lot of it was that I just didn't want to write anymore.

Writing has been as close to a "passion" of mine as anything. Ever since I was in elementary school I've been writing short stories or papers in general. As an English major, my concentration is even in writing. But after writing so many things, it eventually just isn't fun anymore.

I love writing academic papers to get my ideas out. That being said, writing a bad paper is incredibly disheartening. While that seems like a dumb reason to be unwilling to write a 500 word article once a week, it really can effect how you see your own work. I'm already extremely critical about my own work, and not doing as well on something can take away all of the motivation I have.

Every time I sit to write an article for Odyssey, it's a process. It's thinking about what people might want to read, how to coherently write what I'm thinking, and then ultimately deleting it because I can't see anyone wanting to read what I have to say.

As an Odyssey writer, I don't get paid. I do this to gain my content creation experience and editing experience, which I am very grateful for the opportunity. But once you have one popular article, the stress increases on how to continue to write good, popular articles that will help the site. And it definitely takes away the fun of writing something new.

As I've said, not wanting to write after that's all I've ever wanted to do and even want to do as a career is upsetting. I've gotten back into the grove of things a little, but it's still hard to sit down and really want to write about something that is fun and current when you have to consider what your audience wants and how to even persuade your audience to want to read it.

As for Odyssey, I'll continue to write until I eventually grow out of it, as most of us content creators do. This website has given me so many fun opportunities and introduced me to so many nice people, and I'm hoping to get into writing some fun articles again.