Breaking Down The Writer's Block
It's cliche to have an identity crisis during the first year out of college, right? Well, this past year has simultaneously been the best and most confusing of my 23 years on earth. Some thoughts on my self-discovery:
I am a millennial. I am a Midwesterner, I am a Northwestern Wildcat, and I am an avoid reader. I am a traveler and Tweeter, baker and eater. And—I am a writer. Though I've been hesitant to evoke that label as of late, considering I've been trapped in a world of writer's block that has kept my words inside for far too long. It's not that I haven't been writing—I walk the streets, writing and rewriting in my mind, but then it comes time to put it on paper, and I don't do it. For a while I blamed it on time—I was too busy adjusting to a new job; moving to a new city, trying new things. But when the time existed, I found myself more daunted by a blank page than I ever have been in my whole life.
I've always been able to put thoughts on paper. But then again, I always had an identity that made it easy to do so. A student, mostly. Journalism, to be exact. But then I graduated and took a job that didn't require me to write, and I lost that identity. I felt that I didn't deserve to be writing as much as I wanted—that that role should be reserved for those who pursued careers in journalism wholeheartedly after graduation. Sure, I knew freelance writers, but they were hustling hard to write for a living. I just wanted to write for me. What's the difference? It took me months of excuses and regrets and words typed in the notes section of my phone and forgotten to finally take the leap and start penning again. This time my identity doesn't have to be as simple as a one worded label like "journalist" or "writer. This time it's more. It's a NYC transplant who loves words, stories, and sharing them. So that's what I'm going to do.
With that, I need your help: What kind of content do you think is missing in the world? With the countless blogs and digital newsrooms and more.. What haven't read that you'd like to?
Senior Integrated Marketing Manager at The Wall Street Journal, Financial Services
8 年Hm, that's a tough one. You write what you know, right? So something I want to see more of is codeswitching in the context of race in the workplace. But that's something that deeply fascinates me and I relate to. If I was in your spot, I'd probably start off with this transition period you are in and just flesh it all out.