You decide you will start writing regularly. But you don’t start. Instead, you prepare.
You read books, watch videos, earmark reels. You have more than enough templates and advice, and have spent years assembling resources for a job you haven’t yet begun.
On the surface, this looks sensible. Writing is a skill. Surely it makes sense to learn about it before attempting it.
And yet, there is a subtle trap hidden inside all this preparation.
Preparation feels remarkably similar to progress.
I have ‘prepared to write’ for ages. In a rare moment of clarity, I realized that at the core of my dithering was fear.
Do I know enough to write about this?
Who on earth will even read me?
What can I write that hasn’t already been written a zillion times before… and written better than I can write?
And so on.
I’m sure you too have many ways to freeze yourself into a ventriloquist’s doll. It talks, but it does not speak its own thoughts.
Preparation has its place. But after a point, it must cease and transcend into action. It cannot become an escape from the work for which you are preparing.
You want to arrive as a writer before you navigate the uncertainty and vulnerability of it putting yourself out there.
You might have an image of the of becoming a confident, disciplined and capable writer. You understand story structure instinctively. You know what works and what doesn’t. You sit down to write without second-guessing yourself.
Compared to this idealised version, your present self probably falls short.
You decide that the way to close the gap is to acquire more knowledge, confidence and skill.
But paths are made by walking, not by looking.
Until you walk, the finish line will ever remain at an insurmountable distance.
I also believed there would come a point when writing would feel easier. That at some magical stage, I would know enough, understand enough and trust myself enough that the uncertainty would disappear.
It never happened.
The uncertainty changed shape. Some questions were answered and new ones appeared. Skills improved, but so did my awareness of what good writing actually required.
The more experienced writers I met seemed to have reached a similar conclusion. You don’t write because you feel qualified. You feel qualified because you have written for years.
Every completed story becomes evidence.
Every finished draft becomes evidence.
Every abandoned experiment teaches something.
Even failure contributes to the process. A story that doesn’t work still teaches you what doesn’t work. That knowledge has value.
Waiting, on the other hand, produces very little evidence. It preserves the fantasy that you might be brilliant but never lets you put it to the test.
Yes, writing is vulnerable work fraught with the possibility of disappointment. We discover the distance between the story we imagined and the one we wrote.
Preparation protects us from that discomfort. Writing exposes us to it.
Many people remain trapped in a permanent apprenticeship. You are always getting ready, planning to begin soon.
Soon is the day that never comes. No expiry date, no ETA… nothing. Just a vague nothingness fading into distance.
Nobody becomes a writer by preparing to become one.
Write before you feel qualified. Over time, the evidence accumulates.
A story here. A draft there. A growing body of work.
Eventually, you realize that the writer you were waiting to become was never waiting in the future.
They were already there.
Mother of three adult humans. An idealistic, outspoken woman of scrupulous integrity, in love with words. A storyteller who enjoys crocheting tales.
And a passionate bibliophile, of course.