On Writing
And Why More People Should Give It a Try
I am no guru of any particular topic. In fact, I have a pretty strong opinion about the institutions that overly celebrate them — but that is a topic for another day. I have also never written professionally, or hadn’t done so recreationally in more than a decade. Until about a month ago that I decided to sit down one night, and start to write about what was in my mind at that time. I was in Bogotá, and I wrote in spanish, as I was at the moment thinking in spanish, and that side of my brain was spitting information almost effortlessly.
Too effortlessly, I suppose, as most of the people I had the chance to hear feedback from agreed that the piece needed focus, as it handled several complicated topics, with no clear concluding argument.
As a literary work, it was a disaster. Yet, I didn’t care much. I was ecstatic that finally I was about to kickstart a writing project with something concrete, meaningful and somewhat relevant, at least to me, and to a specific group of people that cared about what I had written.
I also have to admit that one main writing blockage I had at the time was picking a publishing platform to do so. I had never been totally satisfied with the publishing alternatives I had. I knew I could do so with little effort on Wordpress, Squarespace, Blogger, or Tumblr. Even on Facebook. But the idea of having to pick one, and having to marry it, was daunting.
I have heard about medium before, and it sounded right, conceptually. The night I decided to start to write, I opened medium, and its simplicity closed the case: the tool quickly went to the background, and allowed me to forget that I was 0n a publishing platform, and all my attention was soon back on the topic(s) at hand. So yes: I am officially backing medium as the ideal platform for anyone that wants to have access to a clean-looking gimmick-less tool to write.
What took me several hours to start, and a weekend to shape and edit with trusted friends, was soon going to be available to the world.
The writing process was great. It was liberating. I had organized an idea, some fancy images, videos and songs that supported and complimented the words, and the end result was a beautiful creation of what was going on in my head at the time.
What came after publishing was even better. Friends, acquaintances and random people working on similar topics from several parts of the world reached back with comments, and suggestions that often led to interesting conversations that had been impossible to establish, had I not published it.
What is still yet to come is what has me more excited about continuing to write. I am thrilled about the possibility of being able to look back some years from now, and review what was in my mind today. For example, I recently started to write about the similarities in terms of accountability challenges faced by the booming sharing economy and Colombia’s ongoing peace negotiations with FARC (Colombia’s most prominent narcoterrorist organization). Both are complicated and unrelated topics, yet, they both seem to suffer from similar obstacles. Also, both have the potential of drastically changing the shape of the future of our society. Writing about it today will therefore allow me to peek back to the past, and see how my arguments withstand the test of time.
Therefore, I am writing today mostly just to get some stuff off my head. To lessen the stage fear I surely do not feel entirely comfortable with. And to train myself for the time I feel I can contribute to an interesting discussion intelligently. Most importantly, I am writing in order to create a public legacy to my future self, and the future generations that may benefit from first hand experiences and opinions from someone doing what I am doing today.
