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I can’t write a blog post

I don’t know how to start. Where would I even begin? Nothing’s coming to me. The ball’s not rolling. I’m just not capable of writing a blog post.

Even if I could find a way to start it, I wouldn’t know how to continue it. Even if I could think of a continuing thing, would it really fit with the preceding thing? I don’t know. It’s too hard. I can’t do it.

Suppose I make it to a third paragraph. Great, right? No!

Now I’ve got stuff. Words and sentences and half-formed thoughts that must be wrangled into some kind of coherence around a central idea. Do I have a central idea? Do I have any idea about anything at all?

And if I do find a central idea, what horrors then await me? How many battles will have to be waged against self-doubt? How many dead ends will I have to go down before the right path opens before me? How many false starts, offshoots and digressions, versions, revisions and re-versions will it take to slosh together some semi-intelligible slush?

It’s too hard. I can’t do it. I’m just not capable of writing a blog post.

It’s not like I’ve faced these challenges in the past. It’s not like, despite the heaps of self-criticism and doubt, I’ve still somehow managed to birth a good many things into the world. It’s not like I’ve written a blog post before.

But if I were somehow able to write a blog post... how would I end it? I wouldn’t know how to end it.

  • The first version of this post was written in April 2019; only four years later did I defeat its demons.
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