One of the things that has sometimes kept me from writing more on my blog has been my own insecurity. I'm not always convinced I have anything worthwhile to say, or am concerned that I'm flat out wrong on something, or will just sound stupid. I don't know how many people actually read what I write, but the introvert in me is concerned with sounding foolish.

Writing was never my strong suit growing up. I was always much more interested in math, science, and computers. I relied a lot on my mom to help me with my language arts classes. It wasn't that I didn't understand the material or didn't have thoughts. I just often had trouble articulating my thoughts into words with proper grammar, punctuation and the like. I still struggle with it to some extent.

It still gnaws at me when I sit down to write a post about any subject. Will my writing make me sound foolish or make me seem like I don't know what I'm talking about. And this doesn't even begin to address my worry that something I write will just be flat out wrong, especially when I delve into various development topics.

I believe I am a competent developer. I have plenty of growing room as does everyone. I've never been the smartest dev in the room, and I'm not sure I'd ever want to be. I'm hungry to learn more and try new things. But I also know I don't know everything, and in some cases I should probably know more than I do. So when I go to write about something I've learned or have figured out, I'm constantly second guessing myself as to whether I understand it correctly or am articulating it properly. Part of it is that I don't want to mislead anyone or send them down the wrong path. But the bigger part is that I don't want to come off as dumb (though it's certainly possible that I might be from time to time).

All of this is constantly circling around in my head every time I'm beginning to write a post, or as I'm about to click the publish button.

I know I should ignore my inner critic and keep at it and keep writing. Improving is a journey, not a destination. I'm not going to get there overnight and it will be a lifelong endeavor. I can always go back and make edits to fix my mistakes, or even write follow-up posts correcting myself. It's all well and good to think that, but it can still be quite the challenge to actually go ahead and do it.

Over the last month, I've been forcing myself to write more. I've been scheduling blog posts every Tuesday and Thursday. These posts are meant to be a little more in-depth than just simple updates. I'm not looking for 2,000+ word manifestos, just something to get my creative juices flowing and share a thought.

It's been going along with my intentional practice. Almost every day, I've been trying to "force" myself to play guitar for 15 minutes and to write for 30 minutes. I don't always succeed, I'm writing this on a day I opted to skip guitar for writing and some video games. I'm not going to treat it religiously, but by putting it on my daily to-do list, I've been doing a better job at making sure I'm putting in the time for both. I want to get better at guitar, and I want to get better at writing. Can't do either without putting in the work.

Hopefully by putting in the work, I can start to feel better about the posts I write and the way the words look and sound on my site.