Writing is sometimes like wrestling a tiger at the bottom of the Ocean whilst wearing a suit made of lead
Right now I should be finishing my article for my client.
It’s about 95% done and it’s not bad. An article regarding a specific niche. Something I am good at, researching, pulling out the juicy info, and writing the salient facts in an interesting and engaging way.
It’s fun to do.
You learn something whilst making money and doing something you have the ability to do. But, you reach a point where you hate the piece so much that you find it physically difficult to hold the project in your head.
This has happened a number of times in my writing career. I have to figure out what the client wants and then craft content to suit their requirements, on paper this is fairly straight forwards.
I know how to research, I know how to pick words and put them in the right order. I know enough about the basics of grammar to get by and this all should be easy.
I should tell you I have been diagnosed with ADHD, but I think that can be too easy an excuse for people to reach for. Yes, my brain works a certain way which makes it difficult for long-term focus. But then so do most people
Everyone finds writing hard, but for me, it’s not the writing, it’s the bit right before the writing. I mean, this article is being written as I think it, a stream of consciousness and I can write like this till the cows come home. No planning, I was just frustrated by my work article and decided to blow off steam by writing here instead of playing a video game, lifting weights, going for a walk or any other number of things to do when I should be writing.
I know writers have this issue, but my writing is my income, it has to be done else I don’t eat. I can’t pay the rent and annoyingly this fear is not enough for me to burn through the wall and complete my task.
It could be that I fear showing it to the client, which may be more about my standards than the client. Most clients just want something Google will pick up and most of those types of people are more likely to use chatGPT and a prompter than a human writer.
When I am tasked to write something people usually want something a little spicy, but that’s very tricky as it means interpreting what they actually mean by spicy and then the work is not so much about the words you write but of the expectation of the client.
And that can cause you to logjam.
As I have now.
So the plan is, to publish this article, have a nap to clear my head and have another go at it. I should be able to finish today.
