How Writers Can Reclaim the Blank Page

I’ve wasted hours staring at blank pages. That’s not great when you write for a living.

The truth was fear and perfectionism held me back. When you’ve convinced yourself every sentence must be perfect on the first try, writing anything is like climbing Mount Everest.

Your mind tricks you.

It’s too hard. [Give up]

You won’t get it right. [Give up]

Your clients will hate it. [Give up]

Suddenly, the blank page becomes our enemy. Taunting us, a perfect representation of all the ways we’ve failed as writers.

We can’t get anything done.

Imagine how many hours it added to my process.

Way too long.

As I got more work, the blank page freakout wasn’t helping. It was hurting me. Everything took longer. I worked a million hours.

Then I got burnt out, and my writing took a further hit.

So I had to develop a strategy to defeat it

Ever see someone who sits down at their laptop, opens a new doc, and writes?

Who are those people?

Now I’m one of them (most of the time).

Hi.

You can be too, and the answer to defeating the blank page is surprisingly simple.