Writing is difficult. The writing part itself is actually rather easy. The difficult part of the process is forcing thoughts from your brain into your fingers, convincing them (your fingers) to press keys on the keyboard, and eventually populating some sort of word processor with words. Or, if you prefer, through a pen(cil) and onto paper. Crayons are also an option. As is chalk on a sidewalk. There are more, but we’ll continue on now.

The most difficult aspect of this process is probably avoiding getting lost along the way. For instance, I paused typing after “process” and my mind wandered so far off topic that I had to escort it back to the sentence I was writing.

Editing before you finish writing the entire article, chapter, book, or what have you is also a potential pitfall. I’ve already edited the first paragraph twice and the second paragraph once. I’m sure I’ll edit the whole thing at least five more times before anyone has a chance to see it.

Returning to our topic: writing is difficult. It is, but it’s also not. You really only need to sit down and write. Writing what you want to write is probably the part most people struggle with. If you can’t seem to accomplish that goal, your mind is possibly too full of randomness and that randomness needs to come out before you can focus on the writing you keep telling yourself that you want to write. However, if you dump the contents of your brain onto a blank page, you may find yourself writing what you actually want to write and not what you think you should want to write. Or maybe, you end up writing in a style that you truly want to write in and not a style that you feel you ought to write in. That is, it’s quite possible you’ve managed to stick yourself in a hole of shoulds and oughts when you need to be climbing a mountain of wants.

I have no idea where I was going with that. Editing it didn’t help much.

This whole thing is to say that writing in itself isn’t difficult. The difficult part is pushing through the roadblocks that stand in the way of writing, many of which you likely placed yourself.

[Editing note: Editing this writing adventure was the most enjoyable part as I remembered I have a copy of the Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage, which is always a joy to explore. This book now lives on my desk.]