I'm a writer. I don't know if I'm a good writer. Some things that I read make me feel like I'm pretty good while others make me feel as though I am not only a poor writer, but have no hope of ever mastering the craft of communicating through written language. But, whether or not I am any good at it, writing is something that I enjoy. It feels right and enough people encourage me in it to make me believe that I should write more. There is only one problem; I never write.
Today, in the era of blogs and statuses, tweets and comments, the forums are endless for amateur writers. Anyone can publish a blog and the impact of any post is measurable through shares, likes, pluses, retweets, and comments. Brilliant! So why am I not writing?
I've been giving this some thought and here is what I've decided. In other words, this is my list of excuses.
1. Pressure- I desperately want to be good. I would love for something that I write to strike a chord with someone and make a difference in their day, even if that is just to make them laugh. I want to write good stuff, powerful stuff, thoughtful stuff, and funny stuff. I want my words to be well timed and eloquent. I want them to soar to poetic peaks then dip and wallow in the mire of a good fart joke just to keep things real. I want my writing to reflect a keen intellect but remain accessible and down to earth. I want to be open and honest while taking enough poetic license with the truth to read like fiction. In short, I put too much damn pressure on my writing. As a writer, I can't live up to this. So I don't write.
2. Time- this one is B.S.. I am a key player and driving force behind the new "binge watching" phenomenon. I can knock out nine seasons of a TV show in a few weeks while pretending to be an emotionally present husband and father. I have time, I just pretend like I don't. So I don't write.
3. Distraction - (see the above confession about "binge watching"). So I don't write.
4. Vulnerability - There it is. This is the big one. Writing is very vulnerable work. It feels like stripping naked in front of total strangers and awaiting feedback. It's putting your heart into words and handing it to a high school English teacher with a red marker. When a piece of writing is published, control is officially handed to the audience and I don't surrender control easily. In a conversation, if I say something poorly, or I stick my foot in my mouth, or I obviously offend my listener, I have the opportunity to backtrack, reword, or even start over. I can stay in control. In writing, this is not the case. I wish I was secure enough to put my ideas out into the public forum and not care what people think, but I'm simply not wired that way. I like it when people like me. I like it when they like the things that I write. So I don't write.
5. I'm eclectic - This may be the main reason that I struggle to be vulnerable enough to write. I don't polarize well. A friend of mine named Clint put this pretty well a few weeks ago as he told me that I was a paradigm busting enigma to him. The way he described me was "the father of 14 homeschooled kids who has pretty conservative values, but uses curse words and drinks alcohol." I've always read both sides of every argument and can usually find truth and fiction in both. In a room full of conservatives, I'm the liberal. In a room full of liberals, I'm the conservative. I'm not simply moderate, I am actually made uncomfortable by unity. I feel that if everyone is agreeing, we clearly don't have all the facts because life is never that simple. The reason that this affects my writing is because I have friends on every side of every argument whom I care for deeply. Their opinions matter to me. I do not want to offend them, or in any way be a stumbling block to them. I suspect that when Paul said that he was "all things to all men", he wasn't trying to publish a blog. We, as a culture, are so accustomed to polarizing that I fear admitting that I like Rob Bell lest my conservative friends disown me and I fear admitting that I like Mark Driscoll lest my liberal friends disown me. So I don't write.
These are my excuses. If you can't tell, this post is a confession. As with all confessions, I am hoping that the act of unburdening my soul might bring healing. I am hoping that, by shining light on my excuses, they might become less frightening and easier to overcome. In short, I am hoping to find the guts to write.
