Thoughts on bad writing
As a non-native English speaker, I’ve been surrounded by fears, founded- and sometimes unfounded fears when writing. You may argue why then I do not write on my native language , but that is not the point.
I believe that thinking and writing in another language definitely shape your character, helps you to force to write clearer and better and you can reach a wider audience anyway.
If I look back to some of the articles I wrote 10 years ago, I feel ashamed. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure I did my best to write them back then, yet I can spot signals of the lack of language and vocabulary. And to be fair with my young self, I’m pretty sure I’ll have the same feeling in ten years from now.
The past keeps me humble.
I usually write about things that passions me from the technical angle; that is Application Security, Cybersecurity, Software Engineering, Tools for detecting attacks among others. Once In a while I switch my gears to some other topics related to my passions or the way I see the world.
And now that I think about it, I have had the same fear that arises over and over at the time of writing and article, but particularly at the time of publishing or sharing. A set of insecurities wakes up and then the sabotage stars once again.
It is like I’m afraid of look dump, to show a lack of criteria or simple that I’m missing the big white elephant in the room on the topic. I must admit that I have lots of insecurities if I’m about to share my writing to a wider audience such as LinkedIn.
Despite this fears, I also have this desire on getting feedback; that someone can just tell me that I’m wrong on how I see or approach a problem. Am I just masochistic?. I do not think so. I just seek to feel uncomfortable because feeling that way is the only way to learn and grow.
On the topic of bad writing, I had the opportunity to Listen Tim Ferriss’s podcast on a conversation he had with Seth Godin titled “The Game of Live, The Value of Hacks and the Overcoming Anxiety”.
This podcast really hit home for me. One of the greatest advices I’ve hear on this topic came from Seth.
On the conversation, he said “…there is not such thing as writers block; writer’s block is real but it does not exist” — the argument goes. “What really is is misnamed I have a fear of bad writing. I have a fear of what the world will say when it encounters my bad writing. And the way through is to do your bad writing; you don’t have to ship it to the world, but you need to do your bad writing.”
I definitely can’t compare to Ferriss’s talent on writing books but I have felt the same way from time to time and this piece of advice motivates me to do bad writing and continue to push myself to the next level. The next level on the path to clarity, to be able to argue and expose my critical thinking and how I see things.
Ultimately, what motivates me even more is what Seth said: “… and bad writing, over time, if you do enough of it, can’t persists. Good writing will slip through”.
I strongly recommend to listen to the full podcast, specially if you have had this same feeling of bad writing.
In my particular case, I’ll continue with my bad writing in a sustained way, looking forward to improve it one step at the time, and If you want to give feedback or argue, I will be very happy to have such conversation.
