A Blank Page Can Help You Write

How to start with a blank page and end up with an article.

Photo by Aman Upadhyay on Unsplash

I started a challenge to post three articles per day on Medium, but I’m not doing that well. I have written three articles in a day before, so I didn’t think it would be that hard. What’s going on here?

First of all, I didn’t start with a plan. I didn’t brainstorm a list of article ideas for the challenge before I decided to do this. I’m usually full of ideas, so I didn’t expect to have so much trouble deciding what to write about.

Somehow, however, no idea feels “good enough.” I mean, there are some really outstanding articles on Medium. I don’t want to post crap. Sometimes you have to write crap to get to the good stuff though. So how do you think of ideas when you’re stuck?

Start with a Blank Document

Now every writer knows that staring at blank page can be scary. It just sits there, mocking you. So you can’t allow it to stay blank for long. The key to overcoming the fear of the blank document is to type something. It doesn’t matter what. Just break up the whiteness. Freewriting is great for this. Write whatever you’re thinking. “I don’t know what to write. I don’t know what to write. I don’t know what to write.” Trust me, you’ll think of something.