Writing the first word (and why it’s so hard)

This post started as a blank page.

I wrote the title first.

When I came back to look at what I’d written, I forgot I hadn’t even written the first word beyond the title. Opened the file. There sat a blank page. Again.

Ugh.

Why is it so hard to write the first word?

It’s not the page that scares you. You fear that you have nothing to fill it. You’re scared you’ve run out of words. You worry that even were you to dredge a few meager words from the bottom of your barrel, they would not be good enough.

This is not your rational mind talking. This is you, feeling fear, feeling dread, making decisions for the future based on that fear.

It’s not rational.
It’s not logical.
It’s not a truth.

It is a fear.

So how do you put the first word on the page?

Write something down. It doesn’t matter what it is.

You can say “I am scared I have nothing to say and no one wants me.”

Write it down.

Speak it to the empty air in front of you.

Write down the next fear.

And the next and the next until you’ve written a whole dialogue of your fears and they’re dancing on the page.

Hemingway says

“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”

Here’s the secret. Your fear. You are not alone in your fear. Every writer feels it.

I’ve felt it. Hemingway felt it.

Steven Pressfield wrote about it in The War of Art. Fear in the form of resistance will lie to you. You must battle your fear and those lies you tell yourself that keep you from writing.

Mel Robbins wrote about it in The Five Second Rule. She tells us to act immediately. When an idea for your writing pops into your head, don’t think about it.

Stop standing in your own way and do it. Write the first word. That’s all you have to do and then one true thought.

Next thing you know, the page isn’t blank anymore.