The Hardest Part About Writing

And the fear of blank pages

Hey friends 👋

Every time I sit down to write, I am staring at a plain blank page with a blinking cursor for a very long time. I’m unsure about where to start and my mind is usually filled with thousand of unfinished ideas that are never translated into words. I put my hands on the keyboard, but my fingers don’t type. I always start with the dumbest sentence, and I clear them immediately after typing them. The anxiety keeps building, and boom within a few minutes, I’m onto the next tab, scrolling Twitter or YouTube feed.

This happens every single time. My mind is a jumbled mess of ideas, and I struggle to find the thread that will tie them together into a cohesive piece. The hardest part for me is not the actual writing, but the fear that holds me back from getting started. This is true for any creative work I try to do. While designing, filming videos, researching or even running; the hardest part is always to get started.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

I’m not an experienced writer and I’m just getting started with the craft. I don’t have enough trust in my process or the craft, there is always a sense of disbelief whenever I start to write an article. There are multiple instances where I have felt confident about the writing after finishing it, but I always start with a lack of confidence. This might be the reason for the struggle. The only way I try to overcome this is by believing in the process and sticking to it. So here are a few routines I try to follow to tackle this fear:

Ideation time

The writing process gets much harder when I don’t have a seed or an idea for the article. I believe it’s important to have a specific time set for just ideating. This can even be a passive task where I just keep thinking about the idea throughout the week. Having a good system of information consumption & recollecting ideas will definitely help here and I’m still in the process of finding the right system for coming up with new ideas.

Brainstorm with AI

This is something I have started doing recently. When I have a brief idea about the topic, I chat with the AI to give me more perspective on the topic. I give my idea as a prompt and ask the AI to expand the idea. It usually doesn’t work that well and I don’t end up using most of the ideas but it helps me to get into the flow. At least I have a bunch of things to avoid and I start by writing the counterpoints to the answer that AI gave me. AI is my non-judgemental, informative, brainstorming companion.

Start with a template

This weekly article consists of the main story and curation content pieces from the week. So I just start with writing the most boring & mundane stuff to get me into the flow. I take screenshots of the images needed, I write the heading, subtitles etc. Then I move on to the main piece when typing starts to feel more natural to me.

Start with a shitty draft

Writer’s block is when the reader & the writer inside you don’t agree with each other.
~ John Mayer

This is the most interesting way to think about writer’s block. The first draft of the article is always shitty. If I let my reader start judging the writing, right from the first draft, I end up writing nothing. So shut my reader brain off when I start writing the first draft and I write whatever comes to my mind. Later I pass the torch to the reader while editing the article.

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With all this being said, It doesn’t get easier for me. I struggled almost the same way to get started with writing this particular article. But I keep reminding myself of these routines to help me overcome this.

Also, the biggest factor that helps me get started is the deadlines. I commit to publishing every week which pushes me to get started with the article. Obviously, I don’t start writing well before the deadline. I barely have time to complete the article every week. But without this, I would have never published even a single article.

So that’s it for this week’s issue. Do you resonate with the struggle? If so, just share your thoughts in the comments below, and let’s share the pain with each other 😭

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💫 This week in Read Write Run

📹 The Truth About AI Getting “Creative”

This is a perfect summary of the AI scene. MKBHD shares his views on AI replacing humans at creative work & other implications that come with it. This is a classic question that everyone is trying to answer and I resonate a lot with MKBHD’s perspective - Using AI as a tool to become better at creative work.

🎙 The full Truth About Mark Rober

No doubt, this is an inspiring & insightful conversation with the YouTube master - Mark Rober. Here are a couple of my takeaways:

Burnout happens when you keep working hard without getting enough dopamine hits.

Mark Rober jogs but doesn’t sprint. He is slow, consistent & mindful about every video he makes.

🎙 Mega Roundtable 2022 - Indian cinema

A wonderfully orchestrated conversation by @baradwajrangan on the Indian cinema post covid. Loved how the discussion was so focused and went deeper (instead of being surface level) even with so many people talking.

The word that defines this year of Indian cinema is - Conviction. Baradwaj Rangan always asks questions on pan India, OTT-theater scene in all of his interviews since the pandemic. This interview felt like a grand finale of all the previous interviews on these topics.

🏃 Run

This week was hard. I was sick for most days and it was raining throughout the week. Managed to run for a couple of days, but couldn’t complete the goal. I’m feeling great after resting & ready for the run next week! Let’s go 🏃