POV: Understanding the Art of Writing

A personal story about writing, failing, and getting back

Image from Lummi

Writing has been a significant part of my life since I began in early 2020. I spent hours researching topics, writing drafts, editing, sharing, and replying to comments.

Writing brought out the good in me, something I didn’t know I had. It allowed me to express my thoughts and opinions and gave me a deeper understanding of life.

However, once I got myself to fully indulge in writing, something else took over my love for it. It was the metrics. Unfortunately, I got hooked on likes, comments, followers, etc. For every article I published, I needed to see what was going on with it.

It affected my creative ability because I kept reading old comments and trying to understand why the article I published three days ago didn’t get over 10 views. I spent 2 hours writing and editing the post, thinking it was one of my best works.

This creativity-killing habit grew more. I couldn’t focus on finding ideas or writing. Instead, I was forced to check the stats and analyze my performance. Analysis paralysis was at its peak.

Then, I stopped writing because the metrics told me I wasn’t good enough. Sure, some well-performing stories got me more views, likes, followers, etc…