Depth. Perspective. Relatable. Insightful.
All things every writer wants their work to have or be. To write a kickass article that brings genuine feelings to readers everywhere. The perfect headline. The best quotes. To get shares on shares on shares online because it’s just that good.
I love to write. I love the voice I've been given. I love to feel like my words can teach, be related to, or help even one person in the world having a bad day. I love coming to a fresh word document, day after day, week after week, and turning nothing into something. Molding shapeless drafts into published articles. To writers everyone, I'm sure you can relate.
I live for the weeks where the list of article topics just continuously grows and grows in my mind. Waiting to escape and be brought to life. The weeks where writing becomes effortless, the words flowing from my mind onto paper, the two barely able to keep up with each other.
But if I’m being honest here, this is hard work. It’s sometimes exhausting. Sometimes I'm typing through tears, wondering if I'm laying out too much of my mind for everyone to see. Sometimes I'm scared to hit “submit,” worried that no one will understand the string of words I just tried to un-jumble from my brain. Sometimes I don’t write at all, too conflicted about everything to even get anything down onto paper.
It's in these moments, the moments that I hit the backspace key more than any of the others, that I remember why I love to write. It's here, when the only thing staring back at me is a blinking cursor on a blank word document, that I remember "the easiest college major ever" still has the most fundamental challenges. It's during this time, when I'm days past deadline and seemingly out of anything to write about, that I remember why exactly I write.
It's during the moments when I'm most conflicted about something that I find my articles to contain the most depth. It is during the moments that I fear my writing has too personal of details that my articles allow for the greatest perspective. It is when I think my words were not successfully "un-jumbled" that others seem to relate the best to.
It's when I write nothing at all that I'm unable to come to resolution, to be insightful for others. To show any true expression of myself because, alas, writing is not only what I do, it's who I am. Because when my fingers are hammering on a keyboard late at night, when I'm scribbling words in the middle of my class notes, when my mind won't stop thinking about how to finish that article, is when I am most at ease.
So what I write may not be that insightful. It might show only the dimmest of light on new perspective. Maybe only one person in a billion can find a way to relate to it. It may be closer to surface level than "deep" after all. But regardless of whether or not all these things are in my articles, I remember when I write, that I'm really writing for me. I'm writing for the health of my mind. The sanity of myself. The chance to express myself in my truest form.
I'm writing for the happiness writing brings me.
