Sometimes I hate writing. Truly, I do.

The blankness of a screen, of a sheet of paper, is intimidating. The emptiness is daunting. The pressure of knowing that I'm expected to write something moving, inspiring, powerful, thought-provoking, or, at the very least, "good," is crushing.

I'm mentally paralyzed at times by the voice whispering in the recesses of my mind that this is something I'm supposed to be passionate about, something I've vocalized that I can see myself building my future on. Beginning is sometimes agonizing.

And then, putting your writing "out there" is a little like going out into public naked. Your innermost thoughts, feelings and views are exposed, paraded on display. Beyond that, your structure and style is critiqued from every angle.

Is this the type of writing where it's OK to use contractions? Where it's OK to use "OK"? Is my vocabulary usage masterful — am I utilizing words that hint at my intellect and knowledge, yet are dispersed discretely enough that my reader is not slogging through a swamp of stilted and stuffy verbiage?

For that matter, is alliteration in proper amounts appropriate, or is it altogether annoying? Should I only make comparisons with metaphors because similes are as "grade-school" as braces and pigtails? What amount of quotation marks and parentheses are considered "too much"? At what point does a string of rhetorical questions begin to send my reader into hysterics?

Do I even have a reader left at this point?

In all seriousness, these thoughts run through my mind every single time I try to start writing.

Writing hurts.

But the end result is so satisfying.

Of all the praise I have received in my life (and I mean that phrase with no boastfulness, only the truest sense of sincerity), I do not think there is any that I value more than praise I received on my writing. Honestly.

Maybe because my writing is the truest representation of me. I'll be the first one to tell you that I'm not a very vocal person. But my writing — that's all me. The complexity of my thought, my perceptions of the world, what I value as important: I express it through my writing. I lay it all bare in the ink.

Please don't think I'm discrediting the teachers who coached me on grammar and mechanics and taught me various styles and techniques. I'm very grateful for their guidance. They were instrumental in crafting this part of me.

But I do think that one of the most beautiful elements of writing is how very personal it is. My writings capture my truest, freest form. This, right here — this is me.

These thoughts may just be a jumbled mess that only make sense to me. And that's OK. And for that matter, I've decided that it's OK to occasionally begin a sentence with "and" and to throw in an "OK" every now and then.

After all, this is me.