I have been writing a decent amount since the launch of my blog. Honestly, a lot more than I had anticipated. Generally when starting side projects that require a significant amount of attention beyond the initial "honeymoon phase" my time invested into them drops like a bowling ball down an elevator shaft. However having a space where I can publish long form thoughts that would otherwise be fleeting has proven to be very mentally relaxing for me. There are many ideas and posts that don't make it through to being actually published for one reason or another, but the ones that do I put a fair bit of effort into writing and proofreading, bringing me to my main point. Writing is fucking hard.
I recently played through the game Outer Wilds and liked it so much, that I was taking notes on my experiences whilst playing. I decided that I would write a post about the game containing anecdotes of my experiences and thoughts on what makes the game so good. That post (still in progress) has become so large containing so many different chunks that it has taken me a very long time to complete it. During this time I've learned a few things about the way I write and the process itself that I have been really struggling with and have been trying to improve upon.
Firstly, getting in to the right head-space so I can actually write competently. I am a developer and have been so professionally for many years now. In my time spent learning and doing development, I have gotten good enough to the point where I'm able to "autopilot" certain aspects of it. This results in me being able to have entertainment on in the background such as TV shows or live-streams and still do what I need to do at a reasonable pace. Having background noise on has become such a normal thing in my life that I do it while doing most things. And so, I try to write while having some form of media on at the same time, and it is such a bad idea. Due to the fact that I have only recently picked up writing as an actual hobby and am still very bad at it, I have no real "autopilot" that I can fall back on. This may not even be something that I can learn to do and will probably have to accept that every time I want to write I must free myself from all other distractions so I'm able to focus on constructing cohesive paragraphs. It has been very challenging to set aside and follow through with having an hour of quiet writing time.
Secondly, writing in such a way that it doesn't exactly resemble the way I speak. This isn't really so much a problem, but more of a getting better type of thing. The more I write the more I realize patterns I have in the way I think and speak. The amount of times I've had to erase words such as "also", "so", and "anyways" from the beginning of my sentences has made me uncomfortably conscience of the fact that I do it a ton in my regular speech. I certainly don't think it's a bad thing to have any noticeable personal patterns in the way you write or speak, but reading it back to myself it does get very repetitive. It's been a challenge introducing variety in the way I structure sentences and paragraphs as well as the words I use, but I do believe I'm getting better.
There are a few other small things like spending too much time lamenting over a different word to use, or how to write and structure outlines, but I feel none of that really warrants pointing out. The point is writing has been a difficult but rewarding hobby to learn. I genuinely feel like my ability to articulate my thoughts has gotten a bit better, which has been a nice little confidence boost. The next step at getting better is definitely reading more.
Watch out for my monstrosity of a post about Outer Wilds, I have a deadline to finish it since the DLC is coming out in about a months time.
Thanks for reading!