Writing is hard.

This isn’t news or anything, but it’s something I never actually said out loud to myself. When I probe around the ideas in my head—the words, the paragraphs, even entire sentences—they all sound immaculate.

They’re witty. Hilarious. Scintillating.

They just feel right.

It’s like reading through all the books I’ve loved before. I can hear the well-trodden passages, the quotes I could recite flawlessly from the heart. I can already see myself side by side with the authors I’ve all looked up to.

“Congratulations, partner. You’ve made it! You just have to pour it all out on this page, and—oh no. You spilled it, didn’t you?”

Writing is hard. I have all these huge, crazy ideas, half-formed sentences just begging to be contextualized, zinger one-liners—dude, I can already see the quotation marks forming in other people’s mouths.

But when I vomit it all out onto the page, it just looks like, well, vomit.

It doesn’t sound the same. It’s meandering and crude. It’s pompous, or pretentious, or, god forbid, trying too hard. It’s just… amateur.

It’s not up to snuff. What went wrong here?

Is it doubt? I mean, probably. Knock knock, who’s there?

Hi, it’s me, Shame, your old friend, oh, and B-T-W, you should be ashamed for putting a knock-knock joke in here, you ripoff.

No matter. Just write.

Write like no one will read it.

We’ve all heard it before. It’s such common advice about anything that you can apply it to everything: dancing, singing, painting, you name it.

I only had to scroll down my algorithm for a minute or two before these seven words—the very same advice—added their screaming to the endless cacophony of social media-approved literary tips, all writhing and amassing under the staggering banner of what we call Content.

It’s not like it’s terrible advice. In fact, I’d probably say it to other writers too. Just write. That’s progress, right? Mediocre, incoherent ramblings on a page still look far more attractive than surrender, and so onward I march.

I can’t not write. A blank page haunts me worse than my own middling prose. It’s like staring at the vast nothingness of my own inefficacy.

Ask any writer, and they will tell you that waiting for inspiration when writing is a foolish trap. Stalling can be deceivingly easy to make a habit of. A day or two of procrastination can—and, in my case, do—stretch into years: I found an old notebook from a few years ago, full of old notes and lackluster sketches. It’s like stumbling into a cemetery of ideas. There was a page somewhere in the middle where I actually stopped writing mid-sentence. I don’t even remember what it was about—some disinterested blurb about a character, long-forgotten. I stopped mid-way into the backstory, probably because it was too raw. I was trying to write a summary of something that hasn’t fully materialized yet.

Hey, the key to getting ahead is to get started, right?

A half-finished drawing can be charming, but a half-baked soliloquy just seems dopey. I’m sure, whatever it was that I told myself that day, it went along the lines of “Ah, I’ll just revisit this when I actually start writing.” That day never came, obviously.

Write like no one will read it.

Isn’t it fun? Spend a day writing your heart out, find some enjoyment in the words waltzing out of the old noggin into the page. Feel productive, fruitful, and sharp.

Sometimes I find myself on the verge of an idea so relevant, a flash of inspiration that feels just perfect. Simply the best way to tie up this half-formed notion I’m writing about. It’s like finding the softest, warmest pair of socks that’s not too tight or loose.

This is the secret sauce, isn’t it?

That elusive something.

Well, just write it all out. We can just revisit it afterwards. Finish it with a flourish and take a loo—oh no.

That does not make sense, doesn’t it? Now it’s gibberish.

Well, see, it’s a skill issue, bud. You will get better.

Just write. Use your voice.

Wait, what?

I have one?

But I don’t like this one.

I want a voice like Joseph Heller, or maybe Hunter S. Thompson.

Sylvia Plath.

I am a consumer, and I want to be just like my idols, whom I have consumed.

They all have that sauce.

Where is mine?

Well, dolt, it doesn’t work that way.

I’m stuck in the taste gap.

There’s the good and here’s the adequate, and there’s this gulf that divides us all.

Build a bridge, perhaps? We’ll get there, for crying out loud. This is why we’re here.

Don’t write for anyone, not even for yourself. Especially not for yourself.

You have taste, an exquisite one at that, but you can’t match that yet, so…

Just write like no one will read it.

Whisper it to yourself.

Smile.

There’s this dirty, exhilarating thrill in actions done above any observation.

It’s like dancing in your underwear in plain view of the bedroom window when no one is around, or sneaking in obscure song lyrics in random conversations.

It’s liberating to be in a position where you can just unmask yourself without fear of judgment or critique.

There is an understated triumph in self-actualization.

But how do you break free?

How do you separate the fluff from the real?

Where is my naked identity, my self, that yearns to be free from the smothering shackles of this towering social and cultural machinery we all call Pop Culture?

For once, how do I stop trying to be a writer and start just writing?

Write like everyone will read it, because they will anyway.

This isn’t an answer to the question above, don’t get me wrong. This is just the sound of adequacy marching to the beat of pigheadedness.

You are adequate.

This? This is progress.

Just write. Inspiration can be an unnecessary trap.

The road to getting better is paved with the half-baked notes we’ve all torn from all of our old notebooks, hardened into bricks by the blood, sweat, and tears of the poor people who will have to make do with your output for now.

Find your voice.

It’s not that good, but it’s not for you anyway.

It’s better than stillborn ideas, dead at birth in the hands of noncommitment.

Writing is hard, but silence is harder.