The Difference Between Wanting to Write and Actually Writing

Wanting to write is a fantasy.
Actually writing is friction.

And I spent a long time living in the fantasy.

I wanted to write for years.
I thought about it in the shower.
During lunch breaks.
Right after someone pissed me off at work and I had a really solid internal monologue going.

I’d imagine the opening line of a novel. Or maybe a blog. Or maybe something totally different — a script? A children's book? A memoir written entirely in passive-aggressive Post-it notes?

But I never wrote it down.
Because the wanting was warm and safe.
The writing? Not so much.

Writing is uncomfortable.
It demands time. And clarity. And the terrifying act of putting something real on a blank page — and then leaving it there, exposed and imperfect.

Wanting to write is imagining the TED Talk you give after the book’s a bestseller.
Writing is staring at your laptop wondering if “the” is the right word to start a sentence.

So what changed?

Honestly?
A weird and sacred combo of:

🕰️ Time — I created space by removing things that didn’t matter anymore.
🎯 Intention — I didn’t write to “be a writer.” I wrote to feel something.
💔 Grief — Simba died, and the ache needed somewhere to go.
🧘 And lowering the volume — on the voice that said, “This is stupid,” “This has already been done,” or “Who do you think you are?”
🧠 Plus a touch of ego — because a tiny part of me thought… maybe there’s something here.

That’s when wanting turned into doing.

And it wasn’t magic.
It was clumsy. Messy. Incomplete.
But it was real.

I wrote a scene.
Then another.
Then I started caring about the rhythm of the whole thing.
Then I finished a book.
And somehow, over the course of six weeks, I became the person I’d only ever fantasized about being.

Here’s what I know now:

If you’re still in the wanting phase, you’re not broken.
You’re just safe.

But if you’re even thinking about crossing over into the friction?
Good. That’s where the good stuff lives.

It’s hard. It’s vulnerable. It’s full of false starts and mid-sentence doubts.
And it’s also the most alive I’ve felt in years.

Want to write?
Start.
Even badly. Especially badly.
Because wanting is a whisper.
But writing?
That shit roars.