ANDRE BEGIN

As a freelancer, have you ever written an article with an eye-popping title, a rock-solid story and a take-away that truly advances the cause of humanity only to review the finished product and decide not to publish it?

You wouldn’t be alone. After blogging for more than ten years, it has happened to me a number of times.

It was only recently that I was able to connect the dots to understand some of the reasons why that might happen.

Please know that the irony is not lost on me with respect to publishing an article about reasons to not publish an article. As someone who feels it is important as a writer to share tips and tricks that have helped my own creative process, it does seem counterintuitive to be advocating for holding back on articles. However, please bear with me as I believe that these are interesting points to consider:

1 – Maybe it is still a work in progress, even though it may appear finished

Typically, this might happen when you think the article is polished and ready for publication. Then, out of the blue, another great idea comes to you.
When you’ve fully incorporated the idea, finessed the updated product and are almost ready to hit “Enter”, another glimmer of brilliance strikes you, strengthening your article by leaps and bounds, holding up the publication process again.

It’s not about perfectionism. It isn’t about a fear of letting go. It may simply be a story idea that needs more time to reach maturity.

When situations like that happen, I believe we shouldn’t give in to our enthusiasm and to publish too quickly. Let the work of art continue to mature until value-added ideas stop showing up like unexpected guests. Your story will thank you.

2 – Maybe the format to share the story isn’t right

Have you ever gone down the path of writing a piece but end up having more points to offer than a blog article would typically contain?

As bloggers, we can certainly choose to make an article as short or as long as we want, but editors might disagree. When that happens, maybe the 1000-word blog article isn’t the right vehicle to deliver your message. Maybe it requires a longer form to fully flesh out an idea to truly do it justice.

On the other hand, maybe it is better served as a subset of another story in support of a larger, overarching concept.

For reasons such as these, when a story seems to be running too long or too short, maybe the article format isn’t the right vehicle to convey the message effectively.

3 – Too personal or oversharing

Food for thought: Just because you can write about something does not mean that you absolutely must and that it must be published.

4 – We wrote it for ourselves

Have you ever considered the possibility that the act of putting words to paper was there to help us process a situation rather than to become a shareable story?

As a writer, I know that writing seems to be an extension of me and my thought process. Writing helps me to process the world around me.

Sometimes documenting a journey is as important as going through it for the purpose of making sense of a situation or in digesting the events to gain a better understanding. Sometimes just getting the thoughts on paper to see them, from the outside looking in, for a more objective view is the point of the exercise.

Sometimes just committing words, thoughts and feelings to paper is the therapy we need to get something off our chest or to lift a weight from our shoulders and to move on.

In conclusion, given the four situations described above, I believe that we have every right to give ourselves permission to not publish an article and just keep it for ourselves, whether temporarily or even permanently.

I don’t think it’s a question of getting stuck in our heads or getting in our own way as writers, it’s a question of recognizing when the work we produce isn’t necessarily ready for public consumption. When any of the above situations arise, maybe it’s best to just let our work rest in a folder.

For these reasons, don’t feel apologetic and don’t spiral into indecision if something inside is telling you to hang on to an article rather than publish it. Grab the next idea that happens to come along and get to work on the next article that may end up getting published.

If intuition tells you not to publish something, there may be a reason for it. As much as writing is very much about sending our words out to the universe with the hope of generating some kind of positive ripple effect, there are times when the final product may be just about us, for us.

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Sincere thanks for reading!
Have a great day,
André