Writing as necessary friction

Joseph Mallord William Turner (from Getty Open Content)

When I first sit down to write, the words don’t come easily at all. It feels like pushing through mental sludge, the gears in my head turning with great reluctance. I can have a clear topic or strong framing in mind, sometimes even with hours-of-related-reading-produced research notes, and still there is resistance to getting the sentences out.

Why do I write anyway? It’s frustrating to spend a great deal of time doing something that doesn’t come easily. It might be worth it if the outcome was always satisfying, but the words frequently come out awkward and inadequate, with a lot less skill than I’d like given how long I’ve been doing this. I rarely go back to read my old posts. And then there is the time I spend staring blankly into space, not even really thinking anything, the mental equivalent of white noise filling my brain.

It’s certainly not for any extrinsic motivation. I do my best to avoid setting any expectations for certain outcomes. Over the years of writing this blog, I’ve had a few people ask me if I was aiming for a number of subscribers or thinking about how to monetize. Putting aside the warping effect of chasing external goals on the quality of the writing itself, the financial upside of publishing written content seems to be getting worse and worse. Only 4% of books earn 60% of profits and user traffic to small-scale content websites like food blogs is collapsing. The best way to afford to write full-time is to already be rich or marry someone who is rich.

There may be some positive side effects on my professional prospects from making my work available, but so far it’s yet to appear in any significant way. Employers might possibly find it a nice bonus, if they notice at all. It’s nowhere near a meaningful boost that creates material differentiation.

Add to all of this the problem of large language models. Generative AI is able to churn out reasonably coherent–and sometimes actually impressive–sentences in seconds. Prompting an AI chatbot is much easier than nailing down the specifics onto paper yourself. So many people are asking themselves, if the goal is to blitzscale publishing of new content, why shouldn’t we all just cede the act of writing to the AI?¹

That’s why intrinsic motivation is essential for writing. It’s getting harder to keep up the forward momentum of my writing hobby relying on extrinsic rewards alone. Instead, I must propel myself using those inner intangible aspects which will force me back to the writing desk again and again.

There are four different kinds of drivers² for me:

• writing as fitness exercise
• writing as synchronizing with reality
• writing as theory-building
• writing as aliveness

Let’s explore what gets me to torture myself with the act of writing, and why its actually a necessary friction.

Head to the first part of the series — writing as fitness exercise.