On the Edge of Writing

A personal reflection on the cost of producing work that matters (to me).

©Antoine Decressac — 2025

There’s a moment, before I’ve even typed a word, when I ask myself: what’s the point?

Not in a rhetorical sense, but as an actual question. What am I trying to say, and does it matter? There are people who know more. People who write better, faster, with less effort. The fear isn’t dramatic. It’s quiet, persistent. A constant tug at the edge of confidence. And it usually begins before I’ve even sat down.

At 63, I’ve lived long enough now, to know that knowledge doesn’t cancel out doubt. At university, I would read assignment questions over and over again, convinced I didn’t understand what was being asked. Not just uncertain. Convinced! I’d pick apart every word of the assignment, terrified of going off topic, persuaded I would be exposed as someone who just didn’t get it. Halfway through writing, the fear would settle into certainty: this is rubbish. I’m writing rubbish. I braced myself for bad marks every time, even when they didn’t come. That fear doesn’t leave you just because you’re older or have a few certificates to your name.

Writing doesn’t start when I put fingers to keys. It starts in the early hours of the morning, before the rest of the world is up, when it’s just me and the cat. I sit down at 3am, every day, and read, think, write, or plan to write. No music, no background noise. Silence. I stop by 6am and begin the actual job which puts food on the table and high speed wi-fi in my laptop. I’ll write some more during my lunch break. I never write after 6pm. I cannot. I usually read, do research and write some notes, until about 11pm. That’s my rhythm. It’s not romantic. It’s just habit and necessity out of which a question comes to my mind and the outline of an answer takes shape.

I don’t write in a flow. I start with a structure: headings, subheadings, bullet points. Then I spend a long time moving those around, cutting and pasting, until they make sense. Only when the scaffolding feels solid do I begin to write between the lines. It’s not elegant. It’s not particularly efficient. But it’s the only way I’ve found that gives me a foothold.

Even then, I question everything. Is this clear? Is it interesting? Does it matter? Who am I to speak on this subject, when experts exist? When others could say it better? When the area I’m writing about feels niche and already well-covered? The doubt never really lifts. I revise obsessively. Twenty drafts for a single paper is not unusual. Each one is a slow unravelling and reassembling of ideas. Each one asks: are you sure?

The mental, emotional, and physical fatigue builds. I sleep less than four hours a night usually, so there’s always a baseline level of exhaustion. But the real drain is the constant thinking, checking, rechecking. Writing can be a form of self-interrogation. I’m not just asking whether the argument holds. I’m asking whether I’m the right person to make it.

That anxiety cuts both ways. Sometimes I’m stuck at the beginning. I don’t know how to start, where to enter the subject. Other times it hits in the middle, when the words are already there but feel wrong or pointless. And always, I wonder: is anyone else even interested in this? I am. But is that enough?

Almost every time I write, I think about stopping. I tell myself I’ve had enough. I swear I won’t do this again. And yet…. here I am! Not because I forget the cost. I don’t. But something still pushes me back to the desk.

The truth is: the outcome is valuable. Not just because I’ve finished something, though that matters. But because it makes sense. Because someone reads it and responds. A like, a comment, even a critical one. It means someone took it seriously. It meant something to them. That’s not validation. That’s connection.

When I look back at what I’ve written, I feel a mix of things : fondness, discomfort, sometimes pride, sometimes embarrassment. That’s fine. It means I’m still learning, still growing. It means I haven’t settled into a voice so fixed it can’t evolve.

What I wish more people understood is that writing , good writing, honest writing, costs something. It takes commitment. Not just to the topic, but to the process. To show up. To wrestle with ideas. To revise. To feel like a fraud. And to keep going anyway.

It’s not about inspiration. It’s about persistence. And the strange thing is, even when writing feels like a burden, I’m still drawn to it. Not because I think I’ll finally get it right. But because it’s how I make sense of things. Because it’s how I reach others. Because after the wreckage of all those drafts, there’s something left standing.

And that’s worth it.

©Antoine Decressac — 2025