The Fear Of The Empty Page And How To Deal With It
Blank Page. White screen. It seems to you like all those 26 letters, don’t want to bind them self in words and sentences. These are those moments when those questions pop up in your mind. Where I should start? What should I write about? A nightmare? Disease? Nearly every writer come to this point.
Well, first, you not sick, you don’t have some rare disease. That’s the good news! The bad news you got writer’s block, maybe a writer’s anxiety and is all in your head, so there’s no one to blame, no one other responsible, but you. Maybe it sounds crazy but on the second thought, that is also a good news. Why? Well, you are the one who can defeat it.
There are books and articles, videos and I don’t know what about the subject. Some of those relay common tropes, like take a break, take shower, take a long walk or talk with your friends and there are definitely some people who just need to get the free mind and a different perspective. But for the most, it just doesn’t help.
Why? Because what we are dealing with is fear. And like with fear of spiders, you are not scared, when you leave the room with the spider within, but as soon as you return and see the spider the fear will come back. Closing your eyes doesn’t make the spider go away and take a shower does not bring the words on the page.
So what can you do? Well, there are other options. There are actually ways to defeat the writer’s block.
Now we are talking. To defeat the writer’s block you have to understand it. What we now already? The writer’s block is all yours and it has his roots in your fear. What does it mean? Well, most writers are extremely critical to they own work. We want, that our piece of work is perfect. We don’t want to put out some garbage. We doubting our self. So what you need to do, give yourself permission to write bad stuff. It's ok really. The Rome was, also not build in one day. So write the bad stuff down, later you will have a lot of time to editing. Don’t skip the steps and try to edit your work in your head. All it brings is that you don’t get the job done.
There are many simple tricks, to do it. I would mention two of them here.
One, you send yourself a timer. Three, five or ten minutes, it doesn’t matter. In those few minutes, you allow yourself to write anything that crosses your mind, you try to write as much as possible in that time. After that, when you see those words on the paper or the screen of your laptop it will be easier for you continue to writing. I promise.
The second one, is as simple as the first. Take a few words, usually, I take three, and add those in your writing. All that you concentrate on in this exercise is to build those words in the piece you write in the moment. Leave all those other things be and concentrate just on those three words. Now you got a paragraph or maybe even a page. So continue writing.
Ideas inspire ideas. Creativity is like a chain reaction.
Stephan King described writing as a craft and it really is one. You would master it only with practice. The more you practice, the better you will become and the better you are, the less scare you are.
The most important thing is that writing will become not your hobby but your habit. You need to do it on regular basis. You need to do it when you don’t have the inspiration or muse. You have to practice and practice. You have to write and write again and again. Write a diary or blog, or something else. But write. If you do it consistently, the fear fade away.
I am not a bestseller Author. Not yet. But I have written for years and I was in that place before. I know how it feels when you want to do it, but you feel like you can’t do it. But there is a way out.
Keep writing!
