Beating the Blank Page

An old Tom Petty song claims that the waiting is the hardest part. Anyone who has to write anything knows the starting is truly the hardest part.

For whatever reason, facing a blank sheet of paper or the white on-screen expanse that represents a new document, which Microsoft Word cheerily calls “Document1,” is very similar to facing the north face of Everest. It’s that level of challenge for most people.

Over the years I’ve read all sorts of tips and exercises that are supposed to help the writer who’s stuck, but there’s really only one way to achieve any level of mastery over the blank page: Practice.

I teach a business writing course in which I tell my students that writing is not a spectator sport. It’s a participant sport. That line always gets me some very blank looks. But the truth is there. The only way you can do well at writing is to practice, is to actually write.

How do you practice? Simply by writing something every day. Whether you write a letter, a description of your office, a description of your commute to work, a funny anecdote you thought about in the shower, a funny accident you had in the shower, the key is to write something every day. Once you’ve written it, you can choose to keep it or throw it away.

I know you’re going to feel self-conscious about writing these little things, especially if you’re only going to throw them away, but here’s a little secret: Professional writers throw away more stuff in an average year than you may write in your lifetime. A colleague of mine often observed that the real difference between the professional and the amateur is the size of the wastebasket.

Part of the reason we throw so much away is that many of us write multiple drafts before we produce the version that’s acceptable to us. I once knew a writer who actually had a T-shirt imprinted with her personal motto: Nobody Sees My First Drafts. Part of the reason is that we understand the value of writing just to write, simply to keep in practice.

Karl Malden, the late actor who worked in film and television for decades, once told a story about working on a project with John Steinbeck, author of such books as Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath, and East of Eden. They were assigned to a small office and, Malden recalled, Steinbeck would breeze into the office every morning and write little stories, small essays, wonderful little pieces that had nothing to do with the project they had been assigned.

Finally, one day Malden’s frustration got the best of him, and he asked Steinbeck why he was spending his time on the little pieces he was writing. “Karl, I’ve got to warm up,” was steinbeck’s reply.

I’ve always loved that line, “I’ve got to warm up,” because it crystallizes the reality of the writing process. You simply can’t produce anything when you’re cold, so you have to warm up. Yesterday’s work as nothing to do with the quality of what you produce today if you don’t warm up. Whether you do it like Steinbeck did, by writing small pieces with no relevance at all, or you do it by writing an extra draft or two of your project, the warm up—and the daily practice—is essential.