Are you actually bad at writing or is it just that writing is uncomfortable for you?
That’s a question that comes up a lot in my world.
I’m often in the position of teaching and evaluating the work of design students who don’t consider themselves to be writers. In the somewhat recent past, I’ve been in the position of collaborating with designers who had to do some writing who also don’t identify as writers. And all through my life, friends have seen me as someone who is good with words, and who turn to me when they feel stuck expressing themselves, the request so often paired a self-flagellating “I’m not a good writer.”
In all cases, I usually find that the writing is not too bad. Unfocused, perhaps. Overwrought, sometimes. But always improvable, and in no way “bad”. Usually, it’s just not done yet. Having written anything is a significant step forward, and at least half the battle.
By and large, writing is not a comfortable activity, not even for writers. You have to sit with the discomfort. Not quite knowing what you want to say, for instance, does not make you a poor writer. It makes you someone who does not yet quite know what they want to say. That’s a starting point: How can you become someone who knows what they want to say?
You could:
- Brainstorm a list of things you don’t want to say and see if you can then articulate the opposite.
- Turn your draft or outline into a barebones list, and look for what’s missing.
- Visualize what you mean to express through sketching, mindmapping, or concept modeling, and see if an answer presents itself in the form of a conspicuous gap.
- Have a friend review it and see if they know what you’re trying to say.
- Sleep on it, start over, and try to go through it once, cleanly. (Maybe the answer is in there, but it got stuck.)
- Take a walk, a shower, or a night off and let your backbrain mull it over.
Writing courses and books are full of methods such as these. Learning only a few, that work well for you, can serve most writers for the rest of their days. But whatever you choose to do, the first and most important thing is to sit with the discomfort. The discomfort is not a problem. It is not a sign of anything. It is not a reflection on you. It is, more often than not, simply part of the process.
Now, you’re quite welcome to not like that feeling, and to decide that you don’t like writing. Nothing wrong with that. But if you’ve got to do some writing — and you will — please know that you can, in all likelihood, do it, and do a fine job of it, too.