Many writers- even the professional ones fear the dreaded blank page. You go to your desk or computer and it just sits there with no words staring into your soul, intimidating you. How do you combat that feeling? and make writing the first word or even a sentence less daunting.
The answer is by doing a warm-up! I'm going to give you a couple of examples, so your writing journey can result in fewer pages being torn out of a notebook.
1. Free Writing
I know what you’re thinking, ‘freewriting? But isn’t all writing free unless you’ve bought it using money?’ My answer is this is entirely different.
Freewriting requires just five to ten minutes before you write ‘properly’. Where you write whatever comes into your head. Think of freewriting as a free for all or a primordial soup. Using a free-writing warm-up will help loosen your wrist muscles. Making it easier to write, and help create a flow of ideas. Reducing the nervousness you feel.
Plus a five-minute free write also helps to not focus on the common fears we feel when writing, fears like ‘this opening paragraph is terrible.’ Or ‘I shouldn’t start with: The pale blue sky… To cliche’ start again!’ It reduces the amount of time that you spend doubting your writing skill. And lowers the pressure, ensuring whatever you write will be less stressful and terrifying.
Most of the time that fear of an empty page is the nightmare of imposter syndrome telling you, you aren’t good enough and it’s always wrong.
2. Prompts
When I was an ‘amateur’ blogger people would always recommend doing a prompt. Either before writing or to use it as a base for when I went creatively bankrupt. At the time I used to pretend to take the advice, and, would brush it aside as I didn’t ‘feel like a real writer.’ if the story ideas weren’t from my own head.
Using prompts made me feel like a fraud. However, a friend forced me to use one during a zoom workshop for fantasy writing. In turn, I found the process of using a prompt fun. Using prompts alleviated the pressure that I wasn’t creative, and gave me a structure to work from. so, I didn’t have to worry about whether my idea was terrible and enabled me to just write. Plus, the good bit is it can both double as a writing warm-up, and be the thing you end up completing in your next writing session.
And it's pretty easy to google just search for writing prompts. If it's for a specific genre i.e. romance, type that in the search bar and you’ll get tons of ideas.
I’ll give you a prompt if you don’t feel like googling it: You find an old box of memories under a person's bed. What objects are in there and why?
3. Word Association
Another good warm-up is a game of word association. Just look at an object in front of you and write down all the words you associate with it or, you think it connects to. It helps get the brain fired up, and enables you to come up with plots or ideas for your writing quicker. Resulting in the first page becoming easier to fill as well.
4. Imagining a character
This idea is similar to word association. However, instead of picking a random object in front of you, I want you to picture a character. This character can be one from your imagination, someone from your favorite book or it can be someone off the TV or someone you know.
Either way, picture a person in your head and for five minutes describe them. What their eyes look like down to the boots they wear. Just spend five minutes describing what they look like, sound like. Push this further and describe the type of setting you to see them in. This helps get the creative juices going and gets you writing straight away. Making you more in the ‘mood’ to write and helps concentration.
I hope my article has given you some fun writing exercises/warm-ups to do before you start creating. If you do try these warm-ups out I reckon in no time at all the blank page will be less terrifying, coming up with amazing concepts will be as easy as 1, 2, 3, and the pressure to be the most amazing writer in the world subsides, and you’ll allow yourself to make mistakes and learn. If you want to check out a professional course all about the techniques of blogging then try this super simple, but really amazing course here.
Thank you for reading writing top tips for easier blog creation and getting over blank pages.
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