“Do you ever worry you won’t have something to write about?”
It might surprise you - as it does me - that this is the most frequent question I get asked.
It isn’t always worded exactly that way.
“Do you ever get writer's block?”
“How do you come up with something to write about each week?”
“Doesn’t the blank screen scare you?”
You get the idea.
Sure, I get asked about programming or exercise technique or nutrition or even, occasionally, business. But some version of “how the fuck do you keep doing this every week?” tops the list.
The fact that I’ve been able to send out one narrative email per week for the past, oh, 8,000 weeks seems to both impress and confound people. Apparently consistency is an uncommon yet admirable trait.
My writing process is actually quite simple. It typically starts in the shower or on the subway. I get an idea, I “talk” the whole thing out in my head and I can’t wait to get on my laptop so I can get it out of my noggin and stop obsessing about trying to remember all the concepts, Dad jokes, Arianna Grande references and petty complaints that make up the thousand words or so you see each Monday at exactly 9:05AM.
The thing that tends to surprise people the most when I answer this most-frequent question is not only do I not struggle to write these most sacred of texts every week, it’s that I struggle to not write them.
Any day that I’m not writing actually feels a little unfulfilled and a bit more hollow and uneasy.
The truth is, I’m not much of a talker. Additionally, when I do speak, I tend to do so pretty slowly. Such is the outcome of being distracted by having a constant running dialogue in my head (which, I just recently learned, is not typical or normal). And this makes keeping up and being heard in conversations difficult for me and frustrating for those I am speaking with.
(And that last paragraph is a good example of the last piece of my writing process - adding a level of vulnerability.)
Writing is kind of my jam. Maybe it’s yours as well.
But it doesn’t matter if it’s writing or chess or mountain climbing or needle point, finding something that is your own and that you are compelled to do is a gift, just as anything that makes you feel more like yourself would be.
Even more incredible than being gifted with a passion is creating one that serves you in some way.
This is what happened to me with my other “I don’t feel quite right if I don’t do this every day” activity - training.
If you’ve read this blog for long enough (I know you have!) or know me well (I’m certain you have my birthday memorized and know what my favorite color is) you know that I wasn’t always this moderately strong and passibly fit person you see before you. No. It all started when my out-of-my-league girlfriend (now wife!) decided she was willing to marry me and I didn’t want to look like a slob on my wedding day.
So I lost 60lbs by training and I managed to do the thing that eludes almost everyone who goes through such a transformation - I actually kept the weight off.
Not only that, I continued to get in better shape by learning more about proper nutrition, finding my way off the cardio floor and into the weight room and ultimately discovering things like weightlifting competitions and surrounding myself with the best trainers and facilities in my city.
And in that process training became less of something that I did and more of who I was. I was no longer someone who went to the gym to check off a box, I went because training was part of my identity and value system.
If anything is valuable and worthwhile to you, this is the level you want to aim for.
Because it is at that level that it becomes less about “can I lose X pounds by Memorial Day” and “6 week challenges” and “if I could just lift this amount of weight” and more about the process of getting in the gym week after week and making progress.
And, perhaps not so surprisingly, it is the people who approach it this way that ultimately end up the strongest, most athletic and with the best body composition.
Twenty minutes per day of guitar playing, getting in the gym three times per week every week or writing a weekly blog for eternity are much more effective than playing guitar for 8 hours once every two weeks or ending your life in the gym for a 6 week challenge and then not showing up again until that challenge rolls back around again next year.
Now, here is the rub that most people don’t realize. It doesn’t start this way.
I recently looked back at my first few blogs. They kinda sucked. And I was just doing them randomly and when I felt like I could fit them in.
When I first started in the gym I did cardio on the Stair Master or recumbent bike or elliptical while I watched CNN or The Price Is Right on a bank of televisions sets up in the front of the room and it was an absolute slog.
When I first picked up the guitar I didn’t know how to make a chord and my fingertips ached for weeks as I got used to pressing down the strings.
I certainly wasn’t in any rhythm with any of it. I didn’t take much pride in my writing, I wasn’t in particularly good shape and I never would have called myself a guitar player. And that is not only fine, it’s essential. You need to start somewhere.
But the hope is that somewhere along the line you get past being a beginner and you become a monk. You do the things not only for the joy of their outcomes but also because they become part of the fabric of your soul.
It’s a remarkably rewarding place to be.
And, since you asked, it’s how you go from being terrified of a blank screen to not being able to wait to get your fingers on the keyboard.