Writing is Hard

It’s been seven days of continuous blog posts, and my biggest takeaway is writing is hard.

“If you find that writing is hard, it’s because it is hard.” – William Zinsser, On Writing Well

Putting thoughts into words is a challenge. Even writing short blog posts is a struggle. I spend anywhere between 1 - 1.5 hours getting a 200 word draft out. My problem is I’m writing and editing in parallel, and it bottlenecks my speed to produce a draft. Removing this bottleneck was a priority because I have limited time to publish a post. So I forced myself to write, regardless of quality, then edit. This produces more clutter in my first drafts.

“Clutter is the disease of American writing. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills and meaningless jargon.” – William Zinsser, On Writing Well

But my strength is editing. I enjoy it because making simple sentences feels good. Simplicity is the secret to good writing. I don’t want my reader to work too hard to understand my point. I want their attention. Simplicity means I can hold their attention.

It’s been only seven days, but I’m looking forward to what I’ll learn in a month. How will my writing improve?

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