Last week, I was thinking of practicing my writing. I had this idea for months, but never got the opportunity to do it.

I already had a plan in mind. All I have to do is visit one subreddit, choose one topic, then write on a daily basis.

It’s simple, right?

Yes, but to me, it was the most complicated thing in the world.

In my head, I was thinking of the narratives I had to do create, all the rules of dialogue, how to present a character, and all that jazz.

It made me stuck in one place, never moving.

Until one day, I decided to “just fuck it” and started reading the stories of other redditors to fuel my inspiration, but it, mostly, fueled my self-pity.

As I expected, the stories are well-thought out and executed, meanwhile mine reads like a patchwork of words – a sad excuse of a story.

I lurked around multiple threads and read stories. I didn’t want to write anymore. It’s so painfully annoying to be so bad at writing.

It was then I chanced upon a single paragraph in a thread. Curious, I read it.

It was mediocre, but it was in my head the entire day.

It’s not because the story was good or how bad the grammar is, but how simple the post is.

It wasn’t a story. It was a summary of a story that the OP envisioned. They knew they didn’t have the skills to create the story yet, but they were able to put what they had in mind into words and that was… amazing.

They knew they need to practice more. They knew they would be criticized or ignored. Yet, they put themselves out there.

It dawned on me that I didn’t approach the writing prompts as practice that I could be horrible at, rather I approached it with the intention of creating the perfect story and gaining a reputable impression.

I expected way too much for myself and I was too egoistic and failed to see that I write to improve not to impress.

It doesn’t have to complicated. Just a simple story would be enough. Heck, a simple sentence is enough.

The most important thing is to do is to write something, share, and be criticized.