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I am going to focus on writing coherently instead of creatively. I have several creative ideas and I trust they will emerge, but in writing my weaknesses are 1) actually doing the writing and 2) artfully structuring an essay to get to a point. Everyone has these problems. I have a lot of good points. But they are difficult to get across.

I used to not have this problem. Essays were formulaic, like math problems, analogies, thesis, supporting points, crank it out. Short stories were fun, creative, imagine a scene a setting, and make something happen. It was okay to use big ideas. When I got to college, I failed to grow into a more complex writer. I wanted to be a writer, but I didn’t put enough time into writing and I was always distracted with so many other things. Looking back, I probably didn’t need to be involved with as many activities as I was, but at the time you are living, you can only see the present and not the future, so you don’t really know what will matter.

I also struggled with putting my thoughts into words. Engineering, especially engineering emails, places/place a high value on expressing points with few words, and so I got used to writing very concisely. Usually this is fine, but in grad school, you need to write 20-page papers (which I sucked at), and if you ever want to write a book, you need to be able to crank out 80,000-words. You need to be able to put a lot of words in a box and go back later and build things out of them. You have to have the patience to give yourself volume to work with.

In engineering school and in working as an engineer, I’ve lost that patience with myself. I want it done now, on time and under budget. I want to know the steps for the project and I want to do them. I want my timesheet filled out. I want – efficiency. Those desires make me a good engineer. But they don’t make me a good writer. They make me intolerant of volume.

Data is cheap. Words are small. I am not going to be afraid of the volume of words I am capable of producing. There is space for my words in the world, just like there is space for everyone else’s words in the world. And here, on this corner of the internet, you can read them, or you don’t have to. I am not going to make excuses for creating volume.