The Beginning
Hello!
When I first had the idea of starting this blog, I was extremely excited. I couldn’t wait to share my opinions and advice with the people around me, and I had already written a list of potential article topics. Starting a blog had been something I wanted to pursue for a few years yet I was never able to bring myself to do so – now was my chance!
As the new year began, I embarked on this adventure; however, each article rough draft I wrote never seemed good enough. I repeatedly went through my list of topics and began writing about random ideas, but with each article I struggled to build on the central theme and my work felt incomplete and dragged on. I took some time off and attempted writing again with a clearer mind but with no luck.
It dawned upon me that I was in a rut. I was already involved in Her Campus, an online magazine, and whenever I had writer’s block for those articles I was still able to come up with something. But now, I had nothing. Did I lose my voice? Had I already run out of things to say to the world?, I thought.
I felt a pit of emptiness and shame growing inside me – I prided myself on my writing abilities and I couldn’t even do that. I eventually came to a conclusion about my writer’s block. As a writer for Her Campus, I quickly overcame my fear of sharing my work with the world because it was shared through a larger platform as opposed to my own brand. There was less pressure on what I produced given that there were so many other writers publishing their works as well, and we were essentially all part of one big unit that “sheltered” us.
However, here on my own blogging platform, I was practically shining a spotlight on myself and I had nothing to “shelter” me this time. This realization is what sparked the idea that I had to produce the perfect piece as I felt that I had no room for mistakes. It would reflect poorly upon just me if I did something wrong; I might as well have gone around with a literal spotlight shining on me.
As someone who is both outgoing yet reserved, the idea of putting myself out there on my own platform was terrifying and probably why I couldn’t produce any solid writing material. In a way, I was subconsciously sabotaging myself so that I couldn’t have something to post and I could just scrap the blogging dream once again. It would have been easier to just move on from the idea before it began to save myself the anxiety. But that isn’t what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to back off from the challenge before it even began and let my fears win. So I’m going to give this a shot. I’m going to try and write to my best ability with the hope that my writing may affect someone, even if it’s just one person.
This post is definitely not what I envisioned myself writing about as I began this journey, but I guess you have to start somewhere.
With love,
Haya Ahmed
