How to Get Over The Blank Page

A writers worse nightmare. The blinking cusor is like a ticking clock.

You write a few sentence. Pause. Delete it. Write again.

They say the first step is always the hardest, as you move the giant gears in your mind to break inertia.

Your monkey mind goes bananas during the first fifteen minutes. Not good enough. This is stupid. No one’s going to read it. I have text John back. I’m hungry. I’m horny. I’m tired.

Follow these 5 steps and you’ll put yourself in the best possible position to start AND finish the work you want to put into the world.

1. Brainstorm

First and foremost, you need a plan, or at least a rough outline of what you’re going to write about. I keep a running list of topics in my Notes app. I used yellow legal paper when plotting out my chapter titles for my first book. Keep it simple. You don’t need another $17 moleskin.

My routine of going to the same coffee shop helped me stay focused. Also notice the legal pad below.

Remember, plans change. You’ll fill in the details later but you need a general direction of where you want to go.

2. Show up

Once you have your general coordinates plotted, start walking aka sit in the seat. Get there and start moving your fingers and your mind will, most often reluctantly, follow close behind. There’s the over used quote that 80% of success is showing up. It’s overused because its true.

When I was a trainer I’d tell clients, just get to the gym. Even if you don’t workout, put yourself in the building and see what happens. Writers have the same directive: put yourself in the seat and watch what happens. Just get there.

I’d recommend going to a quiet coffee shop over working out of your house. Take it serious. Get dressed, showered, spend the $5 and set your daily writing target. Now you’re really invested and you’ve spent money and made an effort. Plus the energy of people around you can be inspiring.

3. Momentum

80% effort every single day is far greater then 100% effort some of the time. Too often we try to do too much, too fast. Cue every news years resolution that starts with grand ambitions and fails by January 17th.

When writing, set a daily target. Could be 10 pages, 1 article, or 500 words. But set it low enough that you can get there and feel great, not exhausted and burnt out. You want to leave some in the tank and be chomping at the bit to get back after it the next day.

Lock in and ride the wave of momementum. Let small daily effort carry you to victory. You’ll soon learn any successful endeavor is consistent and boring. Sorry to break it to you.

After I hit my daily writing target, I was done and off to the rest of my day.

4. Just keep writing

Let it pour out. Let the muse speak to you and don’t go back to edit until its all out on paper. Like racehorse, once youre out gate, sprint as fast as you can to the finish line.

Do not stop.

Remember step 3. Let the wave carry you.

5. Put a hardstop date

Condense time. Cut however long you think it’s going to take in half. It’s been proven its best to work under pressure, with hard deadlines and structure. Unfortunately, writers must self impose all that, so I gave myself 30 days to write my book.

I got it done. Had I left it open ended, who knows when I would finished, if at all.

I hope this helps. Ironic my first Medium article, is about starting. I used this same tactics for writing this. I thought about what I was going to write about. I sat down. I kept writing for an hour. And now I have my first post.

Good luck.