Fight writer’s block and win with this formula

Good bye blank screens

I’m staring at my screen and watching the cursor blink. I know I have to start writing and I know what I need to write about, but I don’t know where or how to start. After a few minutes, I find a way to distract myself and tell myself I’ll come back to it when I’m in more of a creative mood. I’m disappointed when that mood never comes and I’m left staring at my screen again.

I had this problem through University when in my third year I figure out a system to get passed this. I didn’t realize it at the time but it’s well-known system called prewriting.

Prewriting is the first stage of the writing process, typically followed by drafting, revision, editing and publishing. Prewriting can consist of a combination of outlining, diagramming, storyboarding, clustering (for a technique similar to clustering, see mindmapping).

It is difficult to think of something, organize it, and work out the wording and grammar in your head. For most, this is too much to do at once. This leads to constant starting and stopping, which leads to writing that doesn’t flow well. Organizationally, by the time you get one thought out, you may have forgotten your next. To edit effectively, most people need to see the text to edit it.

Prewriting solves this problem in the same way that showing your work when you try to solve a mathematical problem: it’s a step-by-step process where you can clearly see a path and identify where you need to make changes.

There are a few prewriting methods, but free writing works the best for me.

Free writing is a prewriting technique in which a person writes continuously for a set period of time without regard to spelling, grammar, or topic. It produces raw, often unusable material, but helps writers overcome blocks of apathy and self-criticism.

I start with ideation: I write as a stream of consciousness allowing my mind to wander. I don’t focus on the specific words or sentence structure but instead on getting ideas on paper. If I get stuck, I ask myself how would I explain this verbally in a conversation? This gets me past wanting to edit the tone for written communication. The end result is usually messy but I can then see everything I had in my head in front of me. That’s the hardest part.

The next step is organizational: pick the best ideas, cross out the things that don’t contribute, and play with the order and grouping. A narrative starts to poke out from the seemingly disconnected thoughts. Not only do I reorder individual ideas but entire groups.

Product demo outline where I’ve reordered ideas

The last step is editing: the original text was not optimized in any way as that wasn’t the goal in ideation. Now that I have the right ideas, got rid of the junk, and have structure, I rewrite whatever I need to improve readability and flow.

This article was written using this method, using the Outline app. In fact, I wrote this article in between sets at the gym by referencing Outline.

Outline for this article written in the Oultine App — www.outlinenotes.com

To start prewriting you need to:

Fight the need to edit in your head Fight the need to only write down perfect sentences Fight the need to want to write in one pass Fight the thought that this is a creativity problem

Do you use a prewriting methodology or have questions? Let me know in the comments below.