How Content Writing Ruined my Creativity and What I did to Get it Back
15 years ago, I could write essays, creative short stories, poems as easily as reading a book. I had so much to express and emotions were so strong that I never had a problem writing my heart out. Fast forward to my first job as an SEO content writer and I took the first step in ruining my creative writing skills.
Surprised? Think I’m taking it the other way round? Nope. Here’s my story — or rather the story of my writing.
Three years ago, I had to write a short story on pen and paper for my Literature class. I sat there for hours before I could have even come up with a story idea. And once I did come up with the idea, I didn’t know what to write. I kept thinking, ‘I was good at this, why can’t I write!’… back then, I even received certifications and medals for the best essay and best story in school and in college. Whatever happened now? Over the months I had to take two types of writing in parallel — creative writing for my Literature assignments and professional writing that paid my bills. I could easily churn out a 500 word content in an hour, but a literary essay took me 2 days to get done. What did I get wrong? Here’s what I discovered.