Somehow, when I wasn’t looking, I’ve become a professional writer, with hundreds of published articles and a book contract. I still find myself wishing I knew what I was doing.
As everyone knows, writing is easy: “All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.” ( — Gene Fowler)
That staring at a blank sheet part is hard though: once you start staring at the blank sheet you find yourself discovering all sorts of other things you need to do before you can actually sit down to write.
True story: one time I discovered that I couldn’t possibly write a word until I got up and organized my spice cabinet, throwing out all the elderly dried thyme and the paprika the color of sawdust.
Sarah A Hoyt, one of my closest friends and a writer herself, calls this “rotating the cats”.
When you’re staring at that blank paper, you can’t help but see in your mind’s eye an endless vista of blank pages, day after day.
It’s intimidating, even frightening.
Every writer has ways around this. The best ones I’ve found come in two parts.
First, if you feel blocked, lower your standards. It helps me to adopt a trope from Anne Lamott and title everything “Shitty First Draft.”…
