Dilemmas of a Writer: Getting Started

Photo by Mikito Tateisi on Unsplash

As I mentioned, I have been blogging since 2011. But I have been writing even before that time. I was editor-in-chief of our school paper in grade school. While I also became a feature writer for the Filipino publication in high school. The problems I faced back then are still the same today.

I don’t know if other writers experience the same thing. But I would like to share with you my experiences with writing and how difficult it really is.

Getting started on writing

Everybody procrastinates in one way or another. When we put something off for a later time even if we can do it now, we procrastinate.

I don’t think procrastination in itself is a bad thing. It could be viewed as conditioning oneself to be in the right frame of mind to tackle whatever task they need to do. That requires time to prepare.

Procrastination becomes an issue if it takes too long for you to warm up. Then you find yourself pressed for time. If you have deadlines, you rush and turn in poor quality work. If you don’t have deadlines, you’ll probably end up waiting weeks or months before you get started or before you finish what you started.

I think we procrastinate for several reasons. Maybe we have a fear of failure and to avert failure, we psych ourselves until we feel ready to do the task. Perhaps we think there is still so much time left and we become overconfident of our abilities to finish the task within the given time. Or we’re just not that committed to the work.

There is always an excuse we can think of to put off doing something. We will never run out of excuses or distractions, especially in this digital age. And I think the solution to this is pretty obvious.

The solution: Just do it. Get started.

Pick up your pen or laptop. Start with a few words. Then turn them into a sentence. Get those ideas flowing. Write whatever comes to mind. No matter how much of a dreck it is, just keep writing. And once you have nothing left to say, look at the work you’ve done. Pat yourself on the back for getting started.

The same goes for any other endeavor. It starts with taking one step. Start easy. Do the basics first then just repeat until you’re used to it. Maybe after that, you can take on bigger challenges.

Whether you’re just starting to do something or trying to continue where you left off, getting yourself to do it requires discipline and a lot of pushing. But once you get the rhythm and momentum, you will never want to leave that zone. Until, of course, you run out of juice. At which point, you just need to take a break and refresh yourself.

My Ventures

As an example, I decided last year that I would write a daily journal. Simple enough. I just needed to write about what happened that day. I can write the highlights, the lowlights, the weird, and the mundane. Anything that comes to mind, I’ll just write it.

I started writing on a notebook. Then I felt that my hand gets tired because I wrote long entries. So I decided to take it online. And for a year now, I have been able to sustain that commitment. That online journal currently has the most entries out of all the blogs that I have.

I have other endeavors as well. I picked up this app called Duolingo because I wanted to learn different languages. It allows you to learn at your own pace. And I’ve been doing that as well for over a year now. Chessable is another website I go to for learning chess. Similarly, I’ve sustained it for a year.

There are just so many resources available to help you get into the habit of doing something, whatever it may be. You just need to have the initiative to start and continue.