I have lots of reasons to start my blog: sharing my productivity tricks to help people be more effective in work and life, organizing my learnings from great books and biographies, discussing my judgments on technology trends which I am so passionate about, and publishing my findings from the interdisciplinary thinking which I am good at. But on top of those reasons, I have one more thing to achieve by blogging – overcoming writing anxiety.
Yes, I have varying levels of anxiety when writing in different situations. It was not until recently did I realize there is really such a thing called writing anxiety.
How I Discovered I Had Writing Anxiety
Back to the time when I was a student, the level of writing anxiety is unnoticeable to mild in most situations. During my primary and secondary schools, most classes were taught in Chinese, my first language, and I only occasionally felt anxious during essay exams. When I was in university, where English was the medium of instruction, I did not clearly feel that my anxiety level had increased until my final year. In other words, my anxiety does not come from writing in a second language.
I did have a period with strong writing anxiety during my final year project. I knew what my goal was, how the project was designed, and what should be included in the project paper, but I had a very hard time actually writing the project paper. In the end, my project paper got the highest grade in my class despite the difficulty of the topic I chose and the widely-believed strictness of my guiding professor. To my surprise, my professor told me that my paper was presented very professional and rigorous, working favorably towards the high grade.
After graduation, my working language is also English. Although I don’t have much anxiety when writing a business email, I do experience strong anxiety again if I have to write important reports. So I can conclude that the importance of writing is a major factor contributing to anxiety.
Recently, I started to write on some topics that I am both proficient and passionate about in my other blog and that I don’t think are important. However, I still felt anxious during writing. I realized that such anxiety can be acquired rather than inherited.
Symptoms of Writing Anxiety
The symptoms can vary from person to person. My typical symptoms are:
- Overthinking about some details of some part of the writing, but unwilling to actually start writing that part
- Getting stuck halfway through, frequently
- Wanting to eat high-calorie food when writing something difficult
Causes of Writing Anxiety
I did some research on the causes. Most sources suggest the causes can be:
- A new form of writing task, or Inexperienced with the writing task
- A very close or very distant deadline
- High self-expectation of the writing
When I dug deep into the problems, I found some deeper reasons for my anxiety. As I became more self-aware, I realized I had a tendency to do everything at once. I would say this tendency was acquired because I worked as a civil engineer, a profession that values safety and usually plays safe. Errors that have occurred in civil engineering are difficult to correct. So I was trained to not make mistakes and do all things correctly at once. Although to be cautious is almost always good as an engineer, now I am clearly aware that it is not always true in other fields, such as writing. I can always write a shitty but quick draft first, then revise it until excellence.
Ways to Overcome Writing Anxiety
First thing first, accept the fact that writing anxiety is normal. Even the greatest writers can get anxious. Victor Hugo, Herman Melville, Margaret Atwood, and Gene Fowler, to just name a few. After I embraced this fact, I wouldn’t become more anxious because of existing anxiety.
Have a plan for the writing. Be clear of the goal of writing, the core idea, and the feelings to convey.
But don’t overthink about the plan, and don’t have to be perfect in the first drafts. This rule is important for myself, because the more time I spend on planning, the more unwilling I can be to actually start writing. Here, I would like to quote a sentence from Donald Knuth, a computer scientist, mathematician, and Stanford professor:
We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil. Yet we should not pass up our opportunities in that critical 3%.
Donald Knuth
This sentence is famous among software developers, i.e. to describe writing code, but I would say it is also true for writing an article or essay. Premature consideration of details in an article is detrimental to productivity.
And take action now! Use the Pomodoro. Start immediately when the Pomodoro starts.
Conclusion
In this article, I introduced that one important goal, among others, of starting blogging is to overcome my writing anxiety. I recalled some of my earlier anxiety cases and found that writing anxiety can become inveterate once formed and severer when I write something important. One underlying cause of my writing anxiety is that I was trained to do everything perfectly at once, a quality which is essential in my job but can be harmful in other situations including writing. Finally, I listed several ways I used to battle with my anxiety, and I believe they are also helpful to others who are also struggling with writing.
Image Attribution: Pxhere