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Cold Start – Overcoming Writer’s Block

Sunday, December 9, 2012 10:30

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(Before It's News)

I write something for every day on these pages, but sometimes my writing engine needs a cold start. This is what you can do to start writing from cold or that may work for you.

I stare at a computer screen; before computers I stared at a typewriter into which I had fed a blank piece of paper and before that I stared at a blank piece of paper, pen in hand. Whichever, you end up looking at a blank piece of paper or a representation of a blank piece of paper.

If I am writing a book I have it roughly planned out (or specifically planned out) and the writing can just start because the engine is fuelled and warm and will spring to life easily. If I am writing for my work again I will have a mental plan of what I need to write or if it is complex a written plan. That kind of writing is not writing from a cold start.

If I am writing a blog, which can have almost any theme, then I need an idea before I can start writing. If I have an idea the engine is nearly fuelled and warm and I can write down the idea as I work it out.

I type looking at the keyboard, not looking at the screen, but there is comfort in the familiar querty letters and there is more concentration and little distract. But if I do not have an idea I stare at the screen, for ages, wondering what to write. I then look at the news on some reliable and unreliable websites seeking inspiration. If there is none there I thumb some well worn pages looking for a clue of wisdom around which I can write a blog.

Sometimes all these devices fail and I am left with no more than the represented blank piece of paper on a computer screen. Here the writer’s block (so called but really thinker’s block) has started. You cannot divorce the writing process from the thinking process; writing without thinking is like living without breathing: it cannot be done.

Now here is the solution, well it is the solution for me. I type some words. The words typed are the cold start and having started the engine I then discover the journey upon which I am embarked. This was the process that I went through this morning and the words I typed were “cold start”. The rest is history.

Filed under: climate change Tagged: blogging, cold start writing, inspiration, literature, writer’s block, writing