Why Your Relationship With Writing "Is Complicated"

Let me start with a confession: I don't love writing. I do love having written.

I have friends who love writing. I know people for whom the label "writer" is a core part of their identity.

But, as someone with inattentive ADHD, I struggle with the focus that writing demands. When I am writing, sometimes I can get overwhelmed with "decision paralysis" because writing is nothing if not a series of decisions that need to be made. How should I start this sentence? Should I use this word or that word? Is this paragraph even doing what I want it to do? How is the reader going to experience these words? Will they understand? A hundred questions, a hundred decisions, and then each decision starts the questions all over again.

Students in my writing courses are often surprised when I tell them that writing is hard, even for people with Ph.D.s in writing.

But at the same time, that acknowledgment can lift the weight of their own expectations off of their shoulders. Some students think that because writing is difficult, they must not be good at it. Others assume that writing is a talent you are born with, or not. So, I ask "How many of you have hobbies you enjoy, even though those hobbies are challenging and can be frustrating?" Hands go up.

But they still do them. And I still write. And I teach writing because I want to help students who have an antagonistic relationship with writing find a peaceful path forward.