The dreaded blank sheet of paper
A blank sheet of paper can feel like a fresh start; it can also feel terrifying. It contains all the potential possibilities, so many decisions, which one to choose? Where do I start? What do I do? What if I get it wrong? It can be scary and overwhelming. It’s just too much, and yet absolutely nothing is there, both a tension and a paradox at the same time. These are just some of the feelings and questions I have facing a blank sheet. From writing to research, from drawing to ideating, from programming to product development, they are examples of this problem — at some point they all start with a blank screen or a blank sheet of paper.
I have figuratively run away and hid so many time — there are so many time-consuming distractions that multiply, especially when there is a reason to look for them. Long and figurative stare downs at the screen — where do to start? Maybe another cup of coffee may help? Maybe another still? Could more web searching help? What about reading another book? Should I look up the experts’ opinions, again? You get the picture, all procrastinating events to put off the inevitable, to avoid the painful tension of where to start.
However, when faced with many instances of the same situation, some learning comes — coping methods and insights in how to manage and overcome these situations appear. This article was a similar experience, and I applied some of the advice and approaches below to overcome this. When facing this problem, sometimes other’s experiences can be helpful, and I hope this personal reflection piece is useful to you. This is just my experience and certainly cannot claim to be the right and only way; but it might spark your thinking and help you with your own insights to find the right way for you.
Emergent approaches
As an example, writing an article requires making many choices. One is the topic. It is interesting that when the choice of topic is made, so many decisions easily follow. Initially in writing this piece, with a topic decided, the heading miraculously and almost instantaneously became clear! Body text and narrative structure almost wrote itself.
But that was the first draft; at some point, there was a major revision and restructuring; words, and topics were changed and moved. Structural changed followed. meaning and intent — they underwent a significant “pivot”, and so did the topic. Even with these changes, it was a much clearer route; there was no blank sheet of paper issues, significant changes could be treated like refinements, improvements and a revision. The story talked to me through the page, it had a very clear voice and there was no confusion.
All-in-all this was metamorphous, an evolution, a piece of work revealing itself — or just my mind exploring and new meaning and thinking emerging from the writing process. The process itself is not linear, it is explorative, transformation and serendipitous. In my opinion, the process affects both the product and the producer. The product reflects the developing and refining of ideas of the producer. But the process is a teacher, the “product” challenges the producer, teaches them, developing and honing their skills; they evolve together.
I would argue somewhat that when artists discuss their art, the charged emotional content reflects this experience, it is a process of finding and building personal meaning, the product is just a physical symbol of this meaning. This is what I find with writing, thoughts come rapidly and detours become apparent. The question of how to harness these ideas and structure them into a cogent and coherent manner, which is the point of writing after all.
So, to some extent the above would imply that from the act of doing ideas emerge from the medium, by doing the work. By regularly writing, I found this a recurring theme, each piece evolved somewhat on its own, diverging to different degrees from the original idea. So, what these experiences highlight was that the blank sheet of paper experience is simply an initial obstacle and that the point is to get the piece started and it will then work itself out. So, using some of the ideas below may be beneficial to get started.
Firstly, with a word processor all writing can be deleted. So, no matter what is written it can be taken away; the blank page can always be returned to. Considering the fear of failure or the fear of damaging the medium by the act of doing are not relevant. There is nothing here you cannot restart, refine or change. For an artist, have lots of paper or canvas — you can always start again. There can always be fresh pottery and for the writer a fresh screen to work from. Think of it as an initial learning experience and nothing is lost. Any time lost on an initial effort would be lost anyway by staring at the screen and procrastinating.
Secondly, I can choose what I release into the world. Like above, who else will see it? If it is only me, why do I care? This point was instrumental to getting started. With lots of of different manuscripts and drafts, I choose when and what to release. Noone needs to see an early draft. So just write and see what happens; the point is the ideas will develop and evolve in doing the work and in subsequent drafts. There is absolutely no pressure on production or performance. It just is a matter of doing without fear and allowing the process to take shape. This is the same for any other endeavour, just work through it until you are happy to show someone.
I found these first two points important in overcoming the fear of failure. It was one reason that I could not start, what if this is just garbage. Well does it matter? No, it does not.
Thirdly, there is no need to have a major idea. For writing, free write. Write anything down. Even for an essay on a specific topic, just free write some ideas. Ideas take shape. Words and paragraphs are just words and paragraphs. They can be expanded upon or deleted. They can be removed; they can be evolved; they can be rearranged, restructured and recombined in numerous ways. Draft versions are drafts; they evolve towards finality. The initial words break the blank page. Some small marks on a canvas start the artistic process. Now something exists where nothing was before and can be removed if necessary. It is a start.
Fourthly, remember this is not final. It is just the beginning. The process exists to take what is on the page towards the end goal. There is no need to be exact and precise here, see what things look like and go with it. It does not even have to make sense. That is the point. Realising that things morph, and change makes it clear that a final decision is not being made. There is no decision of this and no other. Relax, this is not a final decision, it is just some initial play and go with it. The decision will find you; you do not have to have all the answers at the start, and you can change your decisions at any point in the process.
I found these two points reflect the changing nature of the work. The lack of immediate finality; how a work can organically grow, it does not need exact precise initial upfront planning. Unlike fear of failure this is where to start and paralysis of options; without constraints the vast potential exists and how can it be harnessed? What would harness it? The randomness provides the seed. The meaninglessness of the individual seeds is irrelevant; structure grows out of the chaos; the chaos is the palette. It provides the ideas; the subconscious identifies the patterns in the noise and the conscious grows the structure, the firm fit; the continuously adapted and remade scaffold.
But without the chaos, no scaffold could be placed; no subconscious connections to develop reality. Therefore, there is no need to make the final decisions up front or have a clear initial vision, simply relaxing playing and allowing it to evolve takes the decision pressure off and lets these be made at the appropriate time during the process. Just allow it to flow, and believe that something will emerge from the work, something you cannot see. It will happen but you must believe and just do to allow it to happen.
Fifthly, incorporating comments and getting feedback early really helps. This is unlike the egoist, insecure artist trope where the work cannot be viewed mid-development. A working piece, something that is basically intelligible, something someone can read to some extent and get some meaning from, is all that is required. A brain-dump with bad grammar is hard for commenting; but a finalised draft is not required. Only a part completed reasonable effort is required. The ideas of many helps shape thinking and ideation. Biases and blind spots are identified, hiding below the surface they are not noticed until someone spots them. Readership finds the flaws; improvement corrects them.
Finally, reflecting and re-reading drafts and old writing can help. Clearly, self-copying which involves repeating old ideas and habits is the way to ruin. It leads to entrenched views and ideas, readily need to be departed from and stagnates personal growth. However, self-copying is not what is being argued here. Re-reading and reflection identify opportunities for improvement and ideas that previously may not be explores or made use of. Also, examining prior work in contemporary light allows new thinking, the old ideas can be twisted and viewed through a different lens — as contemporary you are a different you. Also, this lens can combine ideas; older ideas merged into the brand new; a novel and more interesting take and a creative approach can follow.
These last two points lie in engagement and reflection; methods of improvement. Although only the latter overcomes the initial weakness of the black sheet, gaining external comments and ideas very early can help make sense of the chaos, and provide new perspectives. My personal experience is that the chaos is where the ideas exist, but they give an extremely painful internal tension. I want to shut down the chaos and have order, the ambiguity and uncertainty are painful and awkward. Running away and procrastinating often come from this; over-compensating and soothing myself from chaos, these tensions and psychic pain, drive a desire for escape. This escapism leads to the part-completed work remaining unfinished. But working through the tension provides the structure to the chaos and a completed piece, it just must be harnessed and tolerated.
These ideas are a way to help overcome the issue with a blank sheet with an emergent approach. Relax and let the fear come and accept the tension. Although much of this is writing focussed, I have applied these to other aspects; ideation; drawing and painting; speaking and presenting; research projects and product design. Not all of them work at the same time or for every project; their efficacy is dependent on my barriers to the work and mindset. But picking a few, often the ones that either standout (for good or bad reasons), usually work for me.
Depending on the problem and the reasons for finding it difficult to get started, a structured approach can work, and this is discussed next.
Structured approaches
The main difference between the structured and emergent is that the structured approach has pre-planning to remove much of the decision-making process. Really, all that is required is to sit down and do the work.
This approach is useful if this is a regular occurrence, and you aim to produce a lot of work. It starts with a calendar, choosing the frequency of output. For instance, how often to write a story or article, say once a month. The next part is to break the number of months down for which you are going to plan. Personally, three to six months depending on periodicity is best. How I think about the world changes over time, so any more than six months ahead is likely to be overtaken by events. More regular production is usually three months to allow some flexibility for new ideas to be identified and explored.
A structured approach requires discipline. It is about producing what you will say you will produce and not deviating. This does not preclude the emergent development of the work, but it involves starting and being committed, at least initially to the task at hand. It follows the educational idea of answering the question asked, not the one you wanted answered.
As an approach it is very good for writing, especially purposeful writing, either for business, blogs, marketing ideas, thought leadership, social media or other regular produced work that ties in with a prescribed or desired audience. The process is to set out a series of pieces and, commit to producing each piece at the stated periodicity. Each piece is initially a top-level idea. Then nearer the time, it is important to unpack the idea into a series of bullet points. What is the main message and what is it trying to convey.
Remember this is not the full piece, it is just a series of bullet points. Like pre-work for an essay. Some of the ideas from the emergent process may help, specifically the fifth point, running the idea and some bullet points past a few people. Get their take and decide whether it would be worthwhile to include their opinions. The number of bullet points will depend on the length and complexity of the piece, and how in-depth the piece will explore each bullet point. Nonetheless, it is worth getting at least five bullet points and see what another person thinks about them; or maybe they can collaborate with you to develop them. Remember there cannot be too many bullet points, or it will become too difficult to manage and include the. However, if there are these can be trimmed back later, they can be deleted in subsequent revisions or as the process unfolds and as the work takes shape.
Now, the first part was to develop a calendar of titles/ideas. This should be done in one or two sittings. In separate sittings the items for consideration in a particular title or idea should have been fleshed out. All the ideas do not have to be done at the same time; they just need to be done before you start doing the work. The point now in each of these sittings, small pieces of the work have been decided and are no-longer required at the start of the work; there maybe a blank sheet of paper, but much of the structure now exists before it starts.
I have used this process regularly and found it to be very helpful. It overcomes the “What am I going to do?” question that I have often felt just after sitting down. I am no longer trying to answer questions on the spot. But work does have its own way, and it will emerge as the process unfolds. There is a question through of how rigid the process should be adhered to during the work. Should I allow for change?
Well, it all depends, but my experience is yes if it is clear and beneficial. If this is a clear and concrete idea, better than the current idea, the work has likely decided to answer this question during the process. But it is also worth asking the following questions. Do these changes make the piece reflect the audience better? Is this based on more recent audience information and feedback? Does this relate better to recent events or trends?
Moreover, how long should you wait before making significant changes? Personally, it usually only beneficial to change at least a quarter to halfway into the work. At this point, the quality of the initial idea, and a more concrete picture of the change is apparent. The previous work can be saved and not discarded. However, it is now no-longer a blank sheet of paper, and the chaos from starting and doing the work is now becoming order. This is the point.
My experience is that this approach works well for writing as well as speaking and presenting. I have used this approach a lot for these. For drawing and painting this can work to some extent, but there are still many decisions to be made at the start of the blank canvas. What exactly is the focus and perspective? Where should things be sized and arranged? What is the exact visual I need to create? This can make the prearrangement of ideas a little bit less useful, and an emergent approach is recommended.
For research projects and product development these can work quite well; they represent and initial set of requirements to work from and can evolve through the process. But, from personal experience, much of its effectiveness depends on the quality of the second step of defining the bullet points. If the initial bullet point generation approach involves producing a good series of questions, problem identifications and purposes this can work well as in my experience, as these are most important items to identify, followed by trying to explore assumptions. Some learning and evolution are likely to occur, as these types of projects will morph over time. But there will be something to work from and continuous improvement will occur during the development process.
However, if the quality of the questions, problem identifications and purposes are weak, then the process does not work well. It really involves the initial hard work in getting a quality set of starting points. Unlike writing and speaking, this requires much more thought at the outset to be useful. There are generally more risks, and the details are likely to be more difficult to manage. This differs to writing and presenting as the work evolves the text and conclusions may change and have a different emphasis, but it does not need to be scrapped. So, this is something to think about if using this approach.
Summary
There are many reasons why we struggle with a blank sheet of paper. I know that I have done so regularly and figuratively runaway from the situation. In my experience, all creative acts have some form of tension, it is awkward and painful, and it is not always easily resolvable. It sometimes must be lived with and worked through. There are many different causes to the tension, and only you can identify these for yourself, in the moment.
A couple of ideas are presented based on my experience. The emergent way which can overcome fear and allow for some chaos by just brain dumping and realising everything can be changed. There are no consequences to getting this wrong. It is just a matter of putting down some initial creative strokes; these can be completely meaningless and just allow the mind to think, but with something on the paper.
A structured approach, which aims to make the decisions before starting, can provide a useful framework before starting the work. Here some of the tensions are solved prior to starting, allowing for the focus to be on the doing. However, there will always be an element of emergence from the work, tensions will always exist; but there is no longer a blank sheet of paper to start from.
I hope you found this helpful; and any feedback is gratefully appreciated.
