Asking the hard question(s): What exactly is my competency here?

 I was reading the biography by Issy Suttie that I bought last year since it was on discount, without knowing the author. It was cool, and I'd been halfway through. Now that I'm addicted to British comedy podcasts I've been noticing her popping up on all the major pods, perhaps to time with the release of her latest novel. And it turns out she's a pretty big comedian. I picked it up and man I'm so jealous of her writing, she's genuinely funny, knows what gets a laugh and what doesn't, and even when something's not funny she goes on these long tangents but knows when to stop. Unlike the guy here.

To get back to the matters on hand, I've been writing for a long time, here and offline. And the last three years...well you know, writing extra super duper much. Really going all-in with the situation. The idea was to originally prepare myself for the novel, then to create a writing habit, and now I write just out of habit. The material's terrible so half-hearted and not very fun to read. The two regular readers of this blog have abandoned it in recent weeks and months, and there's nobody reading these now.

Which makes me want to raise the good ole' question: what exactly am I doing, and why am I doing it? What's the goal? Do I intend on improving my writing with this, because without a teacher and proper review and guidance it's clear I ain't going nowhere. If it's about 'being funny', that boat sailed a long long time ago, in the era of the dinosaurs. And the habit part, ugh, yeah I've kept at it, more or less, but it's not become a daily habit yet, like brushing or...pooping, whatever. I write in spurts now, a couple of times every day.

So, why do I bother writing them? What's the point? Does it matter? Is it a waste of time? Am I torturing myself? Setting unnecessary expectations? Is this an escape from real things I should be doing? What, what is happening?

Answers.

The point in doing something is not just to 'excel' at it, to 'win' it, to beat everybody else who does it. You can do things for the sake of doing them, because you enjoy doing that (yes I do), because it's become a habit (yes it kinda' has), because you want to see how big of a history you created later (true). It doesn't matter if your output's good or bad, what matters is you're producing. It's hard, but you gotta do it every day, as often as you can. You'll improve. The mountain's tall, but not unscalable. You just travel one step at a time.

It's okay if I'm unlikely to be published in the next year, I'll keep writing. I'll need to realign my other longer-term goals elsewhere but that doesn't have anything to do with this task. Words on paper, words on screen, they'll come out.