The medium of fear

Writers Block by flickr.com/PhotoSteve101 

I got an early medium invite, clearly not because of my writing ability, but I kept hesitating over writing anything.

Why does it seem so difficult to write a blog post? Surely you just dash something off, and publish it, and it’s all done? Unfortunately I’m a bit of a perfectionist, and to be honest, English is my third language after Python and Scala.

That hasn’t been that much of a problem for my own blog, occasionally I just sit down and dash something off, but on Medium I think I’ve been afraid that the quality of writing is just so high that I can’t possibly compete.

Just go and read Bruce Sterling’s excellent piece on the NSA Prism mess, or Frances Pedraza’s in-depth piece on lean startups or Arikia Millikan’s fascinating piece on the first porn film of Google Glass.

These are excellent pieces of writing, things that have sucked me in, and made me feel like my poor english skills are inadequate for the job of communicating on Medium.

But the truth that we face up to is that I have a style of writing, one that you clearly enjoy if you made it this far, and I like to write, it’s therapeutic. My personal blog gets enough views that clearly some of the things I write strike a nerve, so why shouldn’t I post on Medium?

The biggest problem is getting over the fear of actually writing.

For me this happens when I’m prompted by something else, in blogging it was a desire to write about something (and it just flowed). Here on Medium it was a reminder from friends that I’m lucky to have an invite, and that I should take the chance to use it.

So here it is, my fear, for you all to see. I hope you enjoy it.