Writing Cured My Writer’s Block

My latest job is unlike anything else I have done in my adult life. Instead of being a cog in giant ad agencies where everyone has their place and sometimes I’m asked to lend a hand in another part of the process, we are now all responsible for creating every part of the process. There are no writers or designers or strategists. There is no one dedicated to client service. We are all of these things. We are consultants. We’re whatever the client needs us to be. This is so refreshing and exciting. In the ad world I am usually bored with my work after 3 months and hungry to quit after 6, but now what we do changes so rapidly I’m always learning or doing something new.

One thing that I now get to do that I basically never did previously is write. We don’t have a staff of copywriters. We are the copywriters. I have been writing almost constantly for work and even though a lot of it is techno-speak it has awakened the writer within me. As you can see on this blog I wrote a lot my first month, a fair amount my first year and barely at all last year. I only like to write when I feel inspired and have the urge to write. Forcing myself to write has always led to horrid results. Writing for work cured my writer’s block. I didn’t see that coming.

Even though my writing for work and this kind of writing are worlds apart one helped ignite the other. I’m currently transitioning off my last project and onto another where I might be writing less because the team is no longer just me, but several people – and I still have the urge to write. I gave myself the random goal of publishing a post a day this month until we go to Thailand and it looks like that might be possible. I get ideas for blog posts while in meetings, while laying in bed, while reading personal finance blogs. I’ve heard other bloggers mention this and was sad that I didn’t experience it, but now I do. I previously thought that there are so many personal finance blogs out there that I couldn’t possibly have anything to add to it, but I now disagree. My Mom helped me see that the power of blogs is the individual experiences they reveal – not the hundredth article about low-cost index investing.

So I will keep writing. I’ve found myself even writing several posts some days when previously one would be difficult. I just open the page and start typing frantically. Before I would look at the blank page with dread trying to figure out how to begin. This is my blog. These are my thoughts. I hope you enjoy.