We’ve all been there; sitting down at our desk ready to get writing only to find ourselves frozen in space, unable to let ourselves create. That judgement wall built out of self-doubt, imposters syndrome, inferiority complex with a healthy sprinkling of toxic critique springs up between you and your story, and it can feel like there’s nothing you can do to break it down. But please, even when all this adds up to tell you that you are not good enough, do not despair. You are not alone, you are a good enough writer, and there are some simple things you can start to do to help you push through it.
That dreaded blank page actually has a certain amount of magic for me, holding so much promise, so much possibility. It’s that beginning of term feeling, that new stationary thrill; a new notebook, a blank canvas, all have this new beginning enchantment. Until you’ve made your mark you are looking at the place your masterpiece will begin. But then you mar that clean start with words, and suddenly it’s not a mythical possibility, it’s the reality of good old-fashioned hard work. The sheer magnitude of making those words perfect words can stop us from creating anything at all. Getting words on the page, as we all know, is only the beginning. Once that wet clay of a first draft is thrown down the re-writes and editing mould it into something better, something that finally communicates the wondrous invention of your mind directly and fluidly to your reader. But that first step, for many, is something that can halt a budding novel or short story in its tracks. Even though we know that there will be edits – that there will be beta readers, that there will be graft and spit and polish – we still feel that pressure for perfection from the instant we type those ideas into our keyboard or scribble them onto our page. You’ve probably heard this before, and you will certainly hear it again, but I’m going to say it anyway: The most important thing for a writer to do is to WRITE. Just get those words out there into the world. They can be trains of thought. They can be character sketches. They can be full-blown novels written in a flood of inspiration (and time!). It doesn’t matter how they sound to you as you write them, just get them done. The reason this is so important is that when you stop each word at the door and ask it for its ID, you are jarring their smooth transition from your subconscious into the outside world. Accessing your subconscious – the truly magical place where stories are first written – is what we as writers are doing every time we come and greet the page. Have you ever heard writers say in interviews that they could actually hear their characters speaking to them? I always took that with a pinch of salt before I started writing, but after finding myself (on a few wondrous occasions) writing from that place of flow where you suddenly become a conduit for the story, I can now really believe that they could hear those characters talking. Dropping into our subconscious is where that flow begins. We are trying to train ourselves to let our words fly from this place without clipping their wings on the way out. There are loads of ways we can try and break down that judgement wall, but below is one simple exercise to help you on your way. Exercise to beat the blank page: morning pages – or as I like to call them – pages. At some point in the day, whenever it is convenient, write three pages of whatever comes into your head. Maybe you find time in the morning, but maybe it’s just before you go to bed or on your commute to work, it doesn't matter to me so much when you do them, just that you do. Write three pages without worrying about form or content or whether what you are writing is good or bad. No one will ever read these words. Maybe you yourself will never go back and read them. Try and do it every day. Try and keep it up for a week, a month, a year! Some people swear by the ‘morning’ page as a way of life, but it’s also OK to just do them for a brief period in order to free up your writing. The reason we do these pages is that it is a way to access our subconscious. It takes out the pressure of it being for anything, or even about anything. This is not an original idea and there are many writing guides that advocate morning pages in varying levels of strictness. Some say that if you do not wake up at 5.30 a.m. every morning and write three pages of train-of-thought without fail then you have no business calling yourself a writer (I'm looking at you Dorothea Brande). Although I understand the value that people put on these pages, I very strongly disagree with them being the qualifier on whether or not you are a writer. Life gets in the way – sh*t happens and sometimes you won’t get to your writing for months at a time – you are still a writer. I have great belief in the power of being kind to yourself, giving yourself a break when you don’t feel up to it, and ultimately treating your creativity with a lightness that gives it space to breathe. That's the whole point in bringing down the judgement wall! The big rule for me with the 'morning' pages is this: Do not judge your words as you write them. Let them fly from your fingers unfiltered and without limits. The idea is to then take this feeling of freedom you find with your morning pages, of writing without judgement, and applying it to when you write your fiction. As with all things, there will be days when your fiction will flow from this subconscious place in joyous abandon, and other days when every, single, word, is like pulling teeth. The important thing is that you keep writing through the days that feel hard, and don’t let that frozen, fearful, judgement wall stop you. The time for judgement will come – but that is not until later. Ideally once the words have had some space to breath and become separate from you (I’m going to write a different post about self-editing) you will then be able to take off your kind-to-yourself subconscious-loving free-wheeling words-on-a-page writer’s hat, and put on your authoritarian no-nonsense editor’s hat. So, whatever you do, don’t put value on these three pages of words. They can be nonsense, they can be a sort of journal, they can be a list of worries. They can be anything at all. Just fill up those pages. Hopefully this will allow you to have more freedom with your fiction when you do get to write it, and let you have a more relaxed, more productive relationship with your craft. Do you already do writer’s pages? I’d love to hear your thoughts on them in the comments!
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