I've Been Bitten By The Writing Bug

It’s Taken Over My Life

Photo by CDC on Unsplash

I wanted to write since I could read.

But I found a billion reasons not to. No mojo. No time. And my favourite — nothing new to write about. Who would waste their time reading what I write? Years passed, life happened, and “writing” went from my ambition to an ignored chore.

Then serendipity struck — I discovered Medium. #LockdownLife meant no commute. No commute meant free-time. Time in which I could read, contemplate and allow ideas to simmer. I stumbled upon the golden trio: time, idea and #content. For the first time in a decade and a half, I opened a blank Word document.

And the adrenaline came rushing back.

The writer’s high is legit. Going from zero words to an article per week was a cosmic leap for me. Converting a blank page into 2.5k claps was empowering. Experimenting with style, agonising over feature images, tweaking headlines…these became dopamine-inducing rushes.

Was it the positive feedback? The engaged audience? The autonomy? It certainly wasn’t the paltry cash.

The symptoms were showing. I had fallen prey to the writing bug. And I loved it.

I wrote through hangovers. Between work meetings. In my sleep. In the midst of hunger pangs. Through mental…