The cursor blinks on the page. Once then twice. You stare at the blankness of the sheet in front of you. You need to start writing. This essay or lab (or maybe a Spokesman article) won’t materialize out of nowhere, but you just can’t seem to get the first word out. You have written a sentence then deleted it more times than you can count, but nothing is right. This is one of the worst feelings. You have an idea of what you want to get out or you’ve done all the research for your essay, yet you are stuck, both at once teeming with ideas and paralyzed with indecision. Sometimes, the most difficult thing to do is to start writing because you maybe don’t know where to begin or you feel like you have too much. You know that once your paralyzing indecision ends, your fingers will fly over the keyboard and all of your ideas will fight to get onto the page, but you just can’t start.
There are many different ways to just start writing. The way you choose will depend on your own writing style and what type of piece you are writing. When I am writing creatively, I often have the awful habit of hating every single thing that I write, so I will write a little bit and then delete it, over and over again. The best way that I have found to combat this is that every time I no longer like what I am writing, I just jump to the next line and start again. I write randomly. Leapfrogging from idea to idea. Honing my focus on what train of thought interests me most in that second. Eventually, I will reach a point where I have written a page or more of just random snippets of scenes or poetic language or maybe just a character description. It will be chaotic and not at all in order, and I will have maybe three things that I actually like. Yet, now, I have something to work with. I am no longer starting from nothing.
When I am beginning with a blank document, it is so much harder to get the ball rolling. I feel like I have to create everything from scratch. So, when I am writing a lab conclusion, I often curate a list of questions to answer so that I am thinking about a specific question. Once you have a starting place, the words will flow.
Analytical or historical essays can be especially difficult to start: you probably have research or quotes or possibly an outline. I have found that introduction paragraphs can stop me from writing the rest of the essay. How are you supposed to introduce something you haven’t even written yet? My solution is honestly to not write my introduction paragraph first. I always begin with the body paragraphs which I have outlined and have researched for and know exactly what I am going to write. Then once I have written a draft of my whole essay, the introduction paragraph will come organically because you are merely writing about the work you just created. You now know what you are talking about.
Starting is difficult because you are judging every single word you are writing. You have not gotten into the flow of writing, and so nothing is good enough. You pile pressure on yourself to have the most perfect writing, and then nothing will make its way onto the page. The most helpful way to generate something is just to ignore your internal critical voice because even if it isn’t good, you can always edit it away later, but you can’t edit what you don’t have.
