Why is writing so hard?

Full disclosure, it’s nearly 7pm here in Amsterdam. I am sat at Schiphol Airport having got up at 3am to fly here for a conference, and I am now waiting for my plane home.

I’ve spent most of the day listening to a cast of interesting, intelligent and, largely insightful, people discuss the latest trends shaping duty-free shopping in Europe. In the process, I’ve taken copious notes, which I have turned into an article which I published here.

So now, with time to kill, I figured it was a good opportunity to turn my attention to my long-abandoned and oft-mistreated blog. It seemed like this was as good a time as any. I even have topics and titles scribbled out in my notebook: A Year of Scrapbooks & Mixtapes, Going Analog in 2025, New Year’s Revolutions, Let It Howl: The Power of Handwriting, It’s Vibe Check Time. To be honest, I’m not especially sure about that last one. But even with all that at my fingertips, I cannot get myself in a headspace to write anything.

I’ve kept a blog in one shape or another for more than 20 years, and in that time I have never managed to post with any regularity or organisation. I have even come round to the fact that no one needs to read it except me. And possibly not even me.

My first blogs started out as a digital diary and notebook. Then I was influenced by the wonders of The Londoner‘s work in the early 2010s. I loved the devil-may-care freedom of the scribbling in that era of blogging. It’s what I love about Substack today. But I’ve never managed to get my head round joining in there either.

Often I fear, my professional brain, the one I have honed over the years to either write something which makes sense for an audience, or which has been pre-paid for to a spec, gets in the way when I look at my personal blog. I can’t think of anything perfect to write. So I rework. And rethink. And then abandon. Then, eventually, I come back and write a post about how I cant write very often, but now I’m going to do better.

Hey look, we’re back at that point in the cycle. I’ve no idea if this time will be any different. Probably not. Sod it, who knows?

What are you all up to?