Essay - Thoughts of An Amateur Writer

Writing is not easy. Writing is not difficult either. It is perhaps the single most surreal experience one can undertake. To write, is to wrestle with language, with thoughts, with the invisible weight of expectation. It is to confront oneself in the most vulnerable way possible, because every word on the page is a mirror reflecting not only what we know but also what we fear, we do not know.

I write as well, though not as often as I would like. I stall, I hesitate, I delay. I do not put pen to paper when I should. And most of the time, I am simply scared of how it will turn out.

This essay explores my point of view of the paradox of writing—the tension between difficulty and ease, fear and liberation—and reflects on why some of us stall while others embrace the craft with courage and are successful.

At first glance, writing seems deceptively simple. After all, it is just words strung together, sentences formed and paragraphs built. Anyone who has learned a language can, in theory, write. Yet, the act of writing is far more than mechanics. It is the translation of thoughts, ideas and experiences into form, the shaping of raw emotion into coherence. And that is where the paradox lies: writing is both easy and difficult. Easy, because words are always available; difficult, because the right words rarely are.

This paradox makes writing surreal. It is not merely a task but an experience that oscillates between clarity and confusion. One moment, the words flow effortlessly, as though they were waiting to be born. The next, the mind becomes a desert, barren of inspiration and ideas. To write is to live in this tension, to accept that ease and difficulty co-exist.

Do I stall? Yes. Why do I stall? Why do I hesitate to write when I know I should? The answer lies in fear—fear of imperfection, fear of inadequacy, fear of judgment. Writing exposes the self in ways few other activities do. A poorly written sentence feels like a reflection of a poorly formed thought. A clumsy paragraph feels like evidence of intellectual weakness. And so, I doubt myself. I question whether my skills are enough, whether my words deserve to exist.

I believe, this fear is not unique to me. Many amateur writers must be struggling with the same hesitation. The blank page becomes a battlefield where confidence and doubt clash. The irony is that doubt often wins, not because it is stronger but because it is more persuasive. It whispers: What if your writing is not good enough? What if no one cares? What if “they” ridicule you? And, in listening to that whisper, the pen remains still.

Despite the fear, writing remains surreal. It is surreal because it transforms the intangible into the tangible. Thoughts that once floated in the mind, ephemeral, and fleeting, suddenly take shape on paper. They become visible, permanent, and real. This transformation is magical, almost otherworldly. It is as though writing bridges two dimensions: the inner world of imagination and the outer world of reality.

Writing allowed me to converse with myself. Often, we do not know our own minds until we see them reflected in words. Writing, then, is not just communication but a revelation. It reveals the hidden corners of the self, the truths we did not know we carried. It frees us from the prison of unexpressed thought.

Even today, my journey of writing is not linear. It is still filled with starts and stops, triumphs and failures. While it has remained a private, personal exploration, the value of writing never lied in external validation. It lied in the act itself. I discovered that to write is to engage with life more deeply, to reflect, to question, to imagine.

Today, I have been able to overcome the hesitation, and the initial phase where I’d stall. But every stalled attempt was still part of the journey. Every hesitation was a step toward understanding why we fear. And I realised that, every word written, no matter how small, is progress.