Words Unbound

Why You Aren’t Writing

This post is for writers who haven’t been writing—especially those who haven’t worked on a passion project in months or years.

I was in your position for most of the last few years. As an editor and coach, I was surrounded by writing tips and ideas. My world was full of inspiring authors, including my own clients. But tips and inspiration weren’t enough to help me. As cliché as it may sound, I needed a perspective change.

It turns out the obvious obstacles to writing aren’t all that they seem. And if we focus on these surface-level challenges, we can miss the deeper issues.

Four Obstacles to Writing (and the Real Problems They Hide)

The “obstacles” in this list may feel very real—especially if you’ve spent years thinking you’re not motivated enough, you’re lazy, you have no time, or you’d have to turn down too many pleasures to write. I want to affirm that there are real barriers between you and the writing you want to do. They just might not be the barriers you expect. And once you get a clear look at them, it will be easier to find your way around them—or to destroy them with the power of your pen.

Obstacle 1: “I’m not motivated enough to prioritize writing like the ‘real writers.’”

If other writers can write regularly, surely you should be able to. If you don’t, do you not love writing enough? Are you an imposter who should remove “writer” from all your social media bios?

Writing Tips: Parallel Construction

Identify and Fix Common Parallelism Errors in Your Sentences

What do lists, “both…and” statements, and “either…or” phrases have in common?

When they’re written correctly, they’re all parallel constructions.
They’re often written incorrectly.

Parallel construction is key in clear, elegant, enjoyable prose. But our thoughts—and, by extension, our words—rarely spring into existence as well-balanced sentences with perfectly parallel structures.

So let’s talk about how you can identify and improve parallel construction in your writing. It helps if you’re comfortable with grammar lingo, but don’t worry; I include tips you can use even if you don’t have a mind for grammar-related vocabulary and rules.

Defining “Parallel Construction”

I’ll give examples first, then a definition:

Diamond flew over the river, through the woods, and behind the castle.
Juan is both fascinated with and afraid of Georgina.
Both Diamond and Juan are dragons.
At first, Georgina neither spoke the dragon tongue nor wanted to learn it.
Sometimes, dragons want to shop rather than hunt for their food.
Diamond not only tolerated but befriended the humans.

Write before You’re Ready

I meant to start this blog three years ago.

Then I fell into a trap I encourage other writers to escape: I thought that because I wasn’t ready to do everything needed to run a blog “right,” I couldn’t even start. I had this vague idea of the components required for a professional editor’s website and blog, and I lacked too many of them.

I didn’t have webpages for all my editing services yet.

I wasn’t confident in all the pages I did have.

I wasn’t ready to commit to a posting schedule.

I thought I needed to be good at all the less exciting and more difficult aspects of maintaining my website before I could do the part I’d find more rewarding.

In truth, I already had the two most important components: a message to share and a desire to write. I love sharing tips with writers, and a blog is a great way to do that! But I downplayed the importance of my message and desire. I didn’t let myself work on the most exciting part of my website—the blog. My motivation tanked. And for a long time, I didn’t do much with my website at all.

You know what advice I’d give someone else in this situation? If you have a message to share and a desire to write, don’t wait.