I Want More But I Need Less
If I’ve done this right, this is a short one.
27 Apr 2026I’ve been going through something akin to writers block lately. I have a lot I want to talk about, but when I sit down to write something, I never finish because I don’t think I have enough to say. But why do I feel that way?
When I write, I have this feeling that if I’m not creating these super long form articles where I’m waxing poetic for hundreds and hundreds of words, then the blog post is not worth writing at all. So I always find myself struggling to find motivation because I can’t hit this arbitrary word limit I impose for myself. This isn’t really a thing I experience for any technical writing I do, it’s mostly my creative stuff.
I think a large contributing factor is that I’ve written long posts before and now that’s my yard stick - if I can’t match that, then there’s no value. I know that I can do it, so therefore for I must do it. So instead of keeping a concept well scoped and short, I start trying to think of what else I can add in hopes of reaching a certain amount of words. Inevitably I lose sight of what I’m trying to convey which breaks my spirit, and by the end of it all, I am left with half complete drafts and no drive to finish them.
I understand that word count doesn’t matter and can actually be harmful to a work. Shakespeare famously wrote that brevity is the soul of wit, and more importantly, the longer something is, the less likely someone is to read it. I once wrote over 2000 words talking about budget 3DS games from 15 years ago and I know nobody read that but me. Even if I write exclusively for me, my ego still yearns for people to engage with it. Why write more when it’s read less?
I hope to do some smaller blog posts like this one, just to break the habit of trying to write long form stuff all the time. I still enjoy the blog when I do things for it, I just have to stop psyching myself out about word count. Maybe I’ll try to read some Hemingway and learn how to be more concise. And then I can write a post about that, maybe comparing it to a writer well known for their verbosity…