Hey Newbie Writer. I See You Hesitate and I Nod In Recognition. Just Start Writing.
It’s you versus the blank page. It’s you versus yourself & your ideals. Or so everyone says. Here’s how to start in 2 steps.
The Hesitation
Overwhelm. There’s so much you’re dying to say but haven’t a place to start. Ideas are like fireworks in your head. One lights up another until it’s a total clusterfuck inside your brain. It’s a real spectacle.
Meanwhile, the cursor blinks back at you.
Underwhelm. You scale it back, you walk away. You meditate, you yoga, you eat fruit and hydrate. You’re doing everything to clear your mind. Everything but write.
And the page remains blank.
The emotion you’re feeling is a response to the unknown. It’s an ambiguity that disturbs the fabric of your existence. And you begin to feed this monster with your own anxieties.
The quickest way to kill this small lizard before it becomes a dragon. Is to do one thing. Type.
Here’s the simplest way I know to overcome the blank page and to achieve the cliche nirvana of “just starting”. It comes in two parts.
STATE YOUR INTENTION
This isn’t the churn of goal setting or objectives that every writer coach is putting out there. Of course, goals are important. We can define them. They can be defined by others. Everyone’s got goals and objectives.
But your intention for the piece you’re about to write, is just about what you want to say. It’s very simple. You want to connect an idea you’ve crafted.
So begin:
Write down your intention in bare and simple terms
Here’s my intention of this post:
I want to tell other beginner writers that it’s okay to write something down that isn’t perfect. Just starting will create a spark.
Notice that this doesn’t appear as my opening paragraph. But I had it written down as my first sentence. I began that way.
Here’s what I did next…
RELATE TO YOUR AUDIENCE
You see this often in coaching material for writers. It’s important because it gives gravitas to your writing. You don’t just put your intention out into a void. Your reader is someone who cares about your words — not about you.
Your written word may begin firstly as just symbols of grammatical meaning. But when you start relating to your audience; when you start caring for what they want to hear and you echo their desires and aspirations into your piece, you can begin to craft your voice.
When your piece starts to convey your authenticity and your tone becomes personal and engaging then you’ve achieved the transcendental magic of connecting with another human being.
How To Apply These Ideas In 2 Steps
Intention & Audience Becomes A Conversation
The first step was to begin with an intention for the piece of writing you are crafting. If you’re writing a bigger piece I suggest making the goal something small and short, perhaps using a word count limit. Start with 500 words then work your way up to 1000 words.
Let’s look at my original intention and start changing it to suit my audience:
I want to tell other beginner writers that it’s okay to write something down that isn’t perfect. It’s okay to deliberate write something imperfect, just starting will create a spark.
My audience is the beginner writer community. I know them very well because I’m a beginner myself. Further brainstorming simply allows me to relate deeper with myself!
More specifically, I’m focusing on the problem of being perfect. This ultimately comes down to my attitude towards certainty and uncertainty. Why does uncertainty bother me so much, even if the task isn’t all that difficult (eg. write 500 words today)? Is writer’s block really more to do with our inability to handle ambiguity and perfection, compared to having no ideas or no creative outlet?
I’m a beginner writer and I feel the overwhelm of a million experts telling me that the model for writing well is ABC, 123, XYZ. I’m constantly bombarded with “top X tips for doing this and that”.
I just want to begin!
So I decide to talk (ie. write) to myself as if I were another writer:
Hey, I know you’re hesitating. I see it. Don’t worry. I got your back. Just write something down. It doesn’t need to be perfect — we can come back to it. Just write something down.
Notice something there? These words became the title of this post. Do you see that? I was inspired by the words, as if it was a trusted friend telling me to not worry.
It reminded me of my university days writing essays. Here’s the simple comparison to those days — the lecturers would set the questions, we’d just answer them. As a writer, the responsibility is now on me to come up with both the question and the answer that my audience wants to hear.
Write your intention down and have your audience in mind, really caring for them and relating to that one person that matters to you. Write down what you want to give them… and miraculously, that small act of giving allows you to stop the flashing cursor and fill the page.
You begin your conversation.
Write. Don’t Edit. Not Yet.
Allow yourself time to have a decent amount of words. If you embraced the idea of not having to have perfect sentences.
Just talk in your head and write with your hands until the flow produces no more words.
Then you can take a break and look at what you’ve written. Only then can you think about cutting it up and moving it around.
Don’t let Editing get in the way of your Conversation!
Well look at that, one of my personal goals was to write 1000 words today. And I did it! I began not with this silly selfish goal, but by thinking about my audience (even if it was myself). Sure, I haven’t written my “War & Peace” novel yet, but that wasn’t my intention.
It’s to be better, one piece at a time.
About Me, The Amateur
I started writing on Medium this month of June. Prior to that, my public writing was just collection of scrappy blog entries, posts and comments on social media sites. I don’t consider myself a writer.
That doesn’t mean I haven’t done any writing. At university, 30 years ago, I did write a paper for my Accounting & Management degree. Professionally, I have had to write management reports, project reports, official emails and responses. Creatively, I’ve written songs and even attempted a short thirty minute screenplay.
None of that gives me the credibility to call myself a writer. Not yet.
But I hope sharing my journey with you, my fellow newbie writer, was worth your time. I’d like to read your journey. Tag me with @vlad soriano in your piece, let’s have a meaningful conversation.
