In Defiance of Overthinking

I just set a timer for 34 minutes.

I ate up the first two minutes writing my second sentence, then deleting it, then rewriting it, then deleting it, and so on. But that's why I set the timer in the first place. I want to see if I can win a race against my overthinking.

I've been drafting this post in my head for months. Maybe even years — who can remember?

Either way, something inside me decided today's the day. Instead of turning the same thoughts over and over, I want to turn them into words and sentences and paragraphs. I want to turn them into something other people can find, even if few ever do.

So here goes. I'm going to write about some of the things that stop me from writing.

Thinking Beyond the Piece

I can't tell you how many times I've caught inspiration, sat down with the intention to write, and ended up working on infrastructure instead of content.

It goes like this:

1. I have an idea
2. I decide it's worth working on
3. I sit down to start drafting it
4. I start thinking about where I'll submit or publish it
5. I get distracted updating a profile, or mapping out a website rehaul
6. I freefall down the rabbithole of branding, planning, and pretty much anything except writing
7. I don't write the draft
8. I sigh and go to bed

I've been doing this same old dance for years, and I'm sick of it. So today I decided to try and cut it off. I decided to write first, worry about everything else later.

Hence the timer. (Which, by the way, has only 17 minutes left.)

Thinking I Need a Niche

Figuring out a niche to occupy is a good way to grow. It's a good way to get known. But for me, it's been a terrible way to try to get started.

Deciding on a niche is another reason why I get so hung up on planning instead of writing. Because I'm trying to force it from the get-go, instead of finding it along the way.

I do think there's a common thread across many of the topics and ideas that interest me.

But trying to pick and define what that is, as a starting point? It's been paralyzing me. And every time I try to let it go, my marketing brain pulls the e-brake and brings me back to the same old questions: who is my audience? What is my goal? What do I want to be known for?

So today, I'm telling my marketing brain to take a hike, and I'm embracing the fact that I don't know the answer to any of those questions.

Not yet, anyway. Not until I write my way there.

Yikes, 9 minutes left.

Thinking Nobody Cares

Writing can feel so self-indulgent sometimes. Especially the kind of writing that's always come most natural to me — whatever you call this kind of writing. Personal essay, confessional-style, self-reflective, meandering sort of writing.

Who wants to read what I have to say about my completely subjective experience of this world, this life?

I've always liked the advice to "write for yourself" first and foremost. But what does it mean to write for myself? This is another place where my writer brain and my marketer brain easily butt heads.

The marketer in me wants to focus on an audience. Yet much like the idea of picking a niche, picking an audience feels a lot like an obstacle. And even if I knew how to define the people I want to reach with my writing, an audience is something you build — not something you "target."

Or at least, I have no desire to target my personal musings at people.

Rather, I simply want to offer them up freely. I want to put them into the world, where they can be ignored as easily as they can be found.

I don't want to compete for attention.

I'm just bursting with ideas. And they've been erupting inside me so relentlessly, for so long, I feel I'm at risk of imploding.

This is not an essay. It's not a story.

It's a pressure release valve.

(And there goes the timer.)

Doing it Anyway

So if it does turn out that nobody cares about these 795 words, that's okay. I won't let that stop me from sending them out into the world.

I won't worry about a niche, or a target audience, or a brand, or a content calendar, or posting consistently on a certain day of the week, or building an email list, or keyword research, or any of that stuff.

I'm just going to friggin' publish this. Let it be what it will.

And try to do it again soon.