When did writing stop being fun? I’ve wanted to be a writer for as long as I can remember, but lately the passion I use to have as diminished into almost nothing. I remember how much I loved the writing assignments in school, especially the poetry. After school, I would write just for fun. I would write poetry, stories and I even wrote what I call my “book”. It was approximately 48 pages and about the struggles that kids face in school. I did it all for fun. There was no pressure, no stress, just writing. I really miss that. I miss the passion.
I had always wanted to work from home as a freelance writer, so when I got married I felt it was finally my chance to try it out. It started out great. I wasn’t making a lot of money, but I was making something. Then the pressure started building up. We needed more money and I was writing on topics that didn’t interest me in the attempt to make a few extra dollars. If I couldn’t make enough money from it I didn’t want to write it, even if it was a topic I found highly interesting. It left me stressed and without the will to write anymore.
I find myself sitting in front of a blank screen more and more now. I use to write every day. That was my thing. I haven’t written anything in the last three weeks. No blog posts, no poems, nothing. I’ve thought about taking another writing course so that maybe the structure and guidance would give me back what I’ve lost, but I really don’t know if it’s what I want to do anymore. How do you spend your whole life wanting to do something, just to give it up years later? How does the passion just fade away?
Somewhere down the line I started focusing more on the money than on the writing and I think that’s where I not only started losing my passion for writing, but I also started losing a part of myself. To remedy the situation, I’m going to stop that cycle and go back to writing just because I want to. The focus should always be on the writing and not the money, otherwise the quality begins to decrease, the quantity increases and your left with a bunch of articles that don’t reflect the writer that you’ve always dreamed of being.
