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Putting Words on the Page
Drivel is better than the blank page. Adjust your thinking and get back to work.
You’ve probably heard the quotation oft ascribed to Hemingway:
There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.
And if you’ve done any creative writing, chances are you’ve probably waxed poetic about a blank page before. (Guilty 👋) These are valid responses, of course. Even seasoned authors suffer a block occasionally, no matter how much they love writing. Sometimes writing just is hard.
What really matters is how you respond to the block. (And laughing at the thing about bleeding doesn’t count.)
Don’t give in to the waiting game
If you’re waiting for your writing project to emerge pristine and fully formed like Athena gamboling down from Zeus’ glorious forehead, you’re going to be waiting for a long time.
A lot of writers may conflate the quality of a piece with their abilities as a writer, but this just isn’t the case. You’re not a bad writer because you wrote something badly. You know who has written a shitty draft before? Probably every writer you’ve ever read!