Existential dread for writing is real, as it probably is for any creative pursuit, honestly.

I often find myself asking “why” I write, why I continue to believe this is something I should be spending my time and energy on. This question doesn’t normally come as an emotional response, as in how can I go on writing? Who even wants to read my stories? It’s a matter of objective reasoning — existentialist — as in, what’s the use in writing if I’m not aggressively pursuing bestseller lists or millions of readers or international fame. Why am I persisting with this?

I think it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the doubtful voices in your head, so arming yourself with a litany of reasons to keep writing can be helpful when those doubts start to creep in.

For me, in the current moment, the doubt stems not from a lack of desire to write, or even a lack of stories I feel I want to tell, but from the extremely limited time I can spend writing day-to-day, or week-to-week.

Even now, I write this blog post at 11pm, after one long day of work, on the cusp of another, when I should be in bed trying to capture the rest of which I am so often in want. My wife sleeps in our bed across the room from me, as does Teddy, our Jack Russell who loves nothing more than to curl up between us.

In this moment, I’m writing in spite of the things I should rather be spending my time on. At least, that’s what the doubtful voices in my are telling me.

Writing stories is a lot harder than writing blogs, and, as my monthly goals posts will attest, it has become even more difficult for me to find either the time or the mental space to write stories, of late.

So naturally, I’ve begun to question whether it’s worth the effort, the pressure I still put on myself to write.

My conclusion, for now, is that it is. When I was writing my first novel, I felt an urgent need to finish and publish that story. My goal at the time was to publish my first book before I turned 30, and I achieved that with less than two months to spare.

Now, I feel the need to continue to tell stories, but not on any particular timeline. So, for the current moment, I’m writing because I feel as though I should tell the stories in my head, for whoever ends up reading them.

What that means when it comes to publishing them, I’m not sure. They will be published, but the purpose and form of that is more nebulous than it used to be, and I’m okay with that. In some ways, the writing is the point, at least for right now.

Steve D