Fear of Writing

Why am I so afraid of a blank page? Why am I afraid of leaving my mark?

We put so much emphasis on intros that when I sit down to write I get flustered, because I forget just for a moment that writing is mostly about editing. Movie scenes are not filmed in the order of the film. The intro can be the last thing you write. And you can rewrite. You can rewrite everything a million times. You can rewrite one sentence again and again until you die of old age and you still won’t achieve perfection. Perfection is not the point of writing. It’s not the point of anything. It does not exist. The point of writing is to craft something new, to leave a mark, to say something. And I’ll never do any of that if I’m obsessed with making what I write perfect.

So I must accept the idea that I’ll always be imperfect. And that is a lovely thing, because there is always room to grow.

This is my first, roughest draft of this. I’m posting it without editing so I can allow myself to be imperfect, to appreciate the first try, to let go of my fear of writing. Too many times I have sat down to write and then slammed the laptop shut because “fuck it. I’ll never be good enough”. But that’s bullshit. I am good enough. It is good enough. Enough to be posted on a personal blog at the very least. I’m letting go of all or nothing perfectionism because fuck it, it’s only an illusion and no matter how hard you try it will never be good enough to be perfect. And that’s okay.