Why Am I Even Writing?

As you may already know, I started writing on a platform called Medium. There I published a post which inspired me to start this blogging adventure. And I thought that it would also fit perfectly in this blog. Therefore, here is an updated version of my Medium-exclusive post from August 29.

Why am I even writing on Medium?

And why you should write although you are not good at it

I am not a writer. I am not even a blogger. I am not even a literature student. I am not even studying English. I am not even American or British. My first language is Swiss German. I was never especially good at writing essays in school. I was average. But I love to write. Particularly writing in English.

The Beginning Of Writing

Writing started for me at an early age. In primary school, our teacher forced us to keep a diary which she then corrected. Obviously, we were not writing personal stuff but we had to write something. For some reason, after that time I just kept on writing my thoughts into a personal notebook. At the age of fifteen, I started to write my diary entries in English. Why would you even write in a foreign language, you may ask. I agree, it is difficult and sometimes I have to look up some special grammar exceptions or search for the right spelling. And still, I am making mistakes. But from errors one learns. That is why I just kept on. Additionally, I always had the notion that I was able to express myself far better in English than in German. This arises maybe from the fact that English has more appropriate and accurate words. For example, in English, you have a lot more words for rain, but the reason for this could be that Great Britain faces rain almost every day. I also think that English words, when you say them out loud, describe exactly the sound and feeling of it. My absolute favourite one is cosy. In German we call it gemütlich, this does not sound so cosy to me. Moreover, in my childhood, I was confronted with movies, music and books which came from an English speaking country. And this was always exciting because it was different from what I knew. Perhaps there is the factor of something exotic or extraordinary. Nevertheless, I somehow just stuck with the English language when writing about personal problems, emotions and feelings. Furthermore, I like English as a language. I like the sound of it. And I love that there are some words that we do not know in German. For example, my username — a fortnight. In German, we would just call it fourteen days or two weeks which I find boring and dull. We do not have just one word to describe this time period.And the reason for choosing this as my username will probably be explained in a future post.

The Reasons Behind It

Now to my opening questions: Why am I even writing on Medium? And why should you write although you are not good at it? First, I will answer the second one because personally I find this more important. Actually, the answer is very simple. Maybe even too simple. One should write regardless of one’s writing quality if one enjoys it. (Too many “ones” in this sentence, I know…) So in other words: I encourage everybody to write about anything when you like to sit down, connecting words to sentences and uniting all your phrases into a text. The form of your writing does not matter.

One should not be fussed with the questions: should I rather write it this way? Should I write and publish it? Should I leave this sentence like that? — Just do it! Do everything that you like. Do everything for yourself. Do everything that makes you happy. Do not care about others — Just write.

So, writing makes me happy. It helps me to deal with problems and the struggles I am facing. It even motivates me. Ironically, at the moment I have to write an extensive paper for my law studies (of course in German), nevertheless or maybe even, therefore, I am writing a lot of stories in English. For me, it is not a distraction (to be honest maybe just a little one…). In the first instance, I write drafts on Medium when I have a writer’s block and I am going round in circles with my thoughts about law, regulations, statutes, clauses and legislation.

Now it’s time to answer my first question: Why am I even writing on Medium? Yes… well… I just love it! I really appreciate the concept and idea that everyone has the opportunity to write on any topic they want to. It gives one freedom. It enables one to develop. It encourages one to improve.

Through Medium, I rediscovered my interest in writing.

And all this only works because this platform has fantastic readers which embolden everybody to keep up with writing by recommending, tweeting, sharing and commenting the stories.

At this point, I want to thank everybody who supports writers on Medium. We all appreciate the lovely gesture! Last but not least, you have to know, that writing on Medium makes me happy!

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Originally published on Medium