Writing for the sake of writing

I used to write all the time. I used to blog several times a day in an online diary site long before there were such sites as Facebook and Twitter. I wrote stories for a diary called Opinionations where we discussed politics and current events and provided news to those who were otherwise not going to watch the news.

I readily expressed my feelings online and in writings and handwritten letters to my friends.

And there came a point about 6 or 7 years ago when I didn't have daily constant access to the Internet. And then Facebook came about which lowered the traffic to the diary sites I used and they shut down. I stopped writing as much as I used to write.

Luckily I had downloaded copies of my diaries so I didn't lose them. Recently I reread some of my posts from 14 years ago or more, and I was astounded.

First, I was astounded at the things that I did not know back then. Somehow in my memory I had convinced myself that I was much wiser back then than I really was, as hindsight has shown me.

And second, I was astounded at my ability to write so well. I clearly and openly communicated my points. I wrote about my life with no abandon.

I wondered what happened to my writing skills. I wondered what happened to my drive to write about everday things. I used to be so excited about writing everyday. I used to be excited to get feedback on my writing, thoughts, feelings, ideas, concerns, and opinions. I was engaging and interesting.

"Am I not anymore?", I asked myself.

I soon realized that I am, and I still want to write. It has been my life's ambition to be a writer of great books. To be able to live on a beach somewhere in the Caribbean, sit on the beach and work from a laptop. To have the freedom to work anywhere in the world and not be forced to stay inside chained to a desk forever. I wanted to travel the world and write things that kept people thinking and informing them and helping them while also making me money. Lol.

Facebook used to be a place where people wrote about things in their life and then people started getting annoyed by the long posts and rambling thoughts. They wanted to see memes and pictures that they could share. And now it is taught as a best practice to keep your posts very short and your photos plentiful when you're posting on Facebook or Twitter.

Ebooks are published by people who cannot even write properly. I have read some that used broken English or seemed to be copied from other sources and haphazardly thrown together. If these people can be published, why can I not?

The thing is that I think I can. I have the ability to see things from different perspectives. I am objective, understanding and unbiased. I prefer facts to conjecture. I prefer truth to bullshit. Have those things been lost in the world due to the attention spans of the majority of people who simply don't want to read? I don't think so.

I have found that my ability to write lost its luster of years ago after I stopped writing as much. Like any skill, writing is something that in order to do it well you must do it often. To play the piano well as a kid I had to practice and practice alot.

I haven't been practicing my writing as much as I used to. I have read so many articles and information about marketing and blogging. I have read how you have to do this or that to get your audience. How you have to follow all these rules to make any money at writing. I used to write just for the sake of writing but now people don't seem to care about that anymore.

Only it seems to me that maybe I should not care about those people. I should care about my writing and the elite few who actually do like to read and write. I should care less about the masses of those who just aren't as bright as some people and more about the few who appreciate learning, information and truth.

So now I write for the sake of writing and if nobody reads what I write then that's fine. If everyone reads it that's fine too. But in order to get better at writing I am going to have to just simply write. And let the flow come back to me so that no matter what I do in life I don't lose my ability to effectively communicate with others.