Writing For Myself

A little while ago I read Wade Forster’s blog post about how writing for himself helped him to write more, more often. I was especially intrigued by how he said that his blog became a journal and every post were to serve as a “reminder” or beacon for his future self.

Whilst I’ve had similar experiences about writing and publishing here lately, I’ve found that by writing for myself I had uncovered a totally different benefit.

Yes, since I’ve been writing for myself, I’ve found that I write more and I publish more often. I think though that the main reason for that is that I don’t decide whether to publishing something based on the traction / reception that the post will receive within my audience; instead if I want to publish something, I do so. For myself.

You’ll see by browsing around here a little, that 9 out of my last 10 posts could be classified as “being personal”.

The reason for this is that by publishing these posts, I force myself to communicate what I’m thinking and how I’m feeling. So especially on those days where everything just feels like a confused struggle, writing allows me to give some structure to that chaos.

And with structure comes clarity.

Also, by putting this out there and making myself vulnerable, I feel less crazy. It’s almost feels like admitting an addiction and that such an admission is the first step to any kind of recovery.

Writing for myself is like sitting with a therapist and just spilling some guts. The therapist doesn’t say anything in return; they just sit, listen and allow me to try make sense of my world.