I have to confess that I hate writing. Well, maybe I don’t hate writing per se, but rather my grammar usage is less than up to par. I tend to misspell words so often that it’s a wonder I haven’t broken a few spell checkers by now. Why have I admitted to this limitation in my writing skills? In fact, you may be wondering why I would do so at the very same time that I’m writing a book on Regular Expressions in SAS. What about potential book sales? Will anyone buy my book now that this ugly secret is out in the open?

The reason I am letting the world know about my grammatical shortcomings and letting it all hang out there is simply to point out that although my writing skills may royally suck I have not allowed that to stop me. How many of you reading this have similar demons in your own closet? One of the most recited comments SAS users spout off when asked about writing a SUG or SGF paper or even a SAS Press book is, “What? Me, write a book? I don’t have the writing skills to write a book. Besides, I can’t write that well nor do I know enough about SAS to write something”. The demons of fear and self doubt are insidious and ghastly creatures. Once they set up shop inside of you they refuse to leave.

For me, it all began with a lengthy disagreement with my major professor about how my thesis should be written. Needless to say we didn’t see eye to eye on the matter. To make matters worse, he repeatedly stated I couldn’t write well enough to prepare my thesis. Whether he was right or not is debatable, but what isn’t debatable is the fact that I started to believe I couldn’t write.

At some point I decided to face down my demons and began writing papers for a SCSUG conference. One paper turned into two, which then turned into three and this eventually lead me to opening my big mouth and I wound up submitting a proposal for a SAS Press book on Regular Expressions (after two years of being asked by Julie Platt) and finally acquiesced to writing the thing. Most days I feel like Don Quixote, jousting at my own wind mill of trying to write clearly while still being entertaining. But, I know that with each paper or chapter in my book I am taking one step forward to becoming the real me by facing one of my demons.

I know many of you have similar demons, but don’t let them hold you down. I also know that all of you have some tidbits of SAS knowledge or some unique way of explaining some SAS process that will resonate with other people. Don’t let your fears, self doubt about your SAS knowledge, years of experience or inexperience, or inability to write stop you from achieving your goals. Instead, do what I do, surround yourself with a bunch of very bright people to help edit and review your papers. In short, this helps to ensure I don’t embarrass myself by misspelling every other word. You might not get every paper or book proposal accepted, but let me encourage you to keep trying. Eventually you will succeed, even if your writing skills bite like mine.

Stay tuned for updates about Toby Dunn's upcoming book