18th May, 2023

Unpublished Writing

I do write a lot recently, but not much of it gets published on this website. What I publish is still a lot compared to the beginning of the year, yet it’s only a fraction of what I produce.
Some of it is just too private to show around the internet, even with my new endeavour to write more about personal things, emotions and be more vulnerable. But even that is the minority of my writing. For the most part, I just start writing things down and then abandon them.

I’m thinking about if this writing even is writing. If nobody reads it, does it really exist? It surely gives me something. Especially with the very personal things, writing them out creates a lot of headspace and clarity. But for the rest? I get to practice writing a little, but without even the possibility of feedback from the world, what is it even worth?
It feels like cheating. Writing isn’t easy, but for me the hardest part is not the act of writing, but putting it out in the world. While it’s just lying around on my computer, I’m comfortable. It cannot be labelled bad because no one in the world is able to read it. But it also cannot be good for the same reason. And if it’s neither good nor bad, is it anything at all?

Up until now, I thought that I wrote a lot. But my metric was off. I can only count what I published, and judging from that, I did not write that much.

Time to get more comfortable with putting stuff out in the world. Also time to get comfortable putting half-baked thoughts out there that I will be embarrassed of in 3 months or be corrected on after a few hours. Time to work with the garage door open.

© 2024 Chris Jarling