On Writing

I write. A lot. Every single day.

Many people find writing difficult. It can be difficult to precisely express your feelings, sum up an idea, or get the facts just right.

But that’s just the point. It’s the very difficulty of expressing myself that is the joy of the process.

The drafting, tweaking, modifications and thinking that it takes to get from point A where there isn’t any text, to point B where you have a version that you’re OK with sharing with others.

Writing in the modern world is far easier than it’s ever been. We have the luxury of putting our thoughts down and editing and revising as we go. Think about what it took to write before word processing and computers. I can’t imagine the mess that a handwritten document would be for me now.

Those of us “of a certain age” will remember what it was like before word processors. You wrote what you wanted down on paper, often in chunks, fits and starts, and were often stuck, not knowing where to go from this point. I would end up with a piece of paper that was either entirely blank, or filled with scribbles, stricken out text, eraser smudges and generally indecipherable thoughts.

Now I’m able to hammer something out quickly, in the few minutes that I have prior to a long meeting. I can write a few quick thoughts and almost immediately share them with the world — whether they mean anything earth-shattering or not doesn’t matter.

In the past decade or so, I’ve often thought about starting my own blog. I’ve never really made a go of it. I get too enamored with technology, delving into the details of having automatically scaling images, responsive templates, and more.

I get so lost in reading and researching that I forget that I should just get to the point and write. This is one of the reasons that I like Medium. I don’t think about the extras. I just get beautiful typography (thanks Marcin Wichary and team!) and a site that’s easy to use.

I’m hoping to write more in the future, and encourage you to do the same. I find myself reading at least one, and more likely 3–4 articles on Medium each day. Heck, maybe in the future, one of mine with be something that you read and like. Fingers crossed!