The Writer’s Cure for Blank Page Syndrome
How to write well without trying and to start without starting
The blank page is a cruel temptress. We’ve all wrestled with it. Especially writers like me, who are more on the pantser side than the plotting side. We all know the Hemingway quote about bleeding on the page. We’ve heard the same old advice about eliminating writer’s block and all the re-hashed writing tips that seem to repeat themselves forever.
Writer’s block isn’t real, but that doesn’t make the blank page less intimidating.
What hits us when we face the blank page, is not writer’s block, but ourselves. This is the phenomenon Steven Pressfield named the Resistance in his must-read book, The War of Art.
You are the enemy
— Steven Pressfield
As writers we depend on our minds to create our work. We don’t get a physical lump of clay or block of wood. We don’t have the luxury of blueprints nor wiring diagrams. We must take our own chances and develop our work from nothing — using our heads.
These are the very heads that fight against us — the mind that wants to keep us doing what we’re doing and never to try anything that makes us uncomfortable.
