The Art Of Blank Page – How To NOT Stop Writing

Posted on March 2nd, 2008 in Self-Development, copy writing, ideas, writer's block

I’m sleepy but I can’t really sleep. I just finished Paprika, great anime about dream and reality. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t sleep. I’ll be damned if somebody invaded my dream and then actually try to interpret it.

The cow in your dream means, you are about to milk your long term effort.
The smiley clown means, you are going to get rich and smile all day long like a clown.

So here I am, trying to write something just for the sake of writing… or staying awake, or trying to sleep.

You’ve seen this type of entry everywhere around the blogosphere haven’t you? Yeah, like other blogger, after blogging for quite a while (10 posts is a lot, really), I’m sure everybody will definitely come to a point where there can’t really write/no idea/writer’s block/whatever you call it.

What really holds me back when writing is – myself.

Yeah, guilty as charged. Every single time, just write one line, then the inner editor in me starts to analyze the line, trying to fix it, check spelling, grammar checking (ok, maybe not so much) and million other checking an editor would do.

Then comes the inner proof reader, mark few points here and there and before I know it, I was busy fixing that one line I wrote 48 minutes ago. And the train of thought already departed 44 minutes ago.

Next stop! (Insert famous blog here)

And all I got with me is a one liner.

Luckily, I found a solution to that. I remember reading it on copyblogger. Can’t find the original post, but lots of good tips there, pick what you like or use everything. I’m personally not fond of memorizing everything at once, thanks to my secondary school teacher, but that’s another story.

So the best single idea I got from copyblogger is – Turn Off Your Monitor When You Start Writing.

Brilliant! Now your internal editor and proofreader can’t do their job. How can they? There’s nothing to see (try proofread that! :-p). But the writer in you can still keep punching the keyboard and come out with a great story before the train leaves.

Once you are done, turn back on the monitor and both editor and proofreader can finish their job.