How to avoid blanking when writing

A secret of successful writers is that they never put themselves in situations where they go blank and get stuck. They never have a blank page, they always have ammo and tactics to use to help them get out of problems.

How do they do this? They create an environment where good ideas happen. Some tactics for doing this:

• Constantly be writing down ideas. It’s hard to just come up with good ideas on the spot. They happen whenever and if you don’t write them down, you lose them.
• Read a reference. Be inspired by the writing you aspire to write. Jimmy Soni read his reference of “The Everything Store” while “The Founders.” Hunter S. Thompson retyped The Great Gatsby to feel what it took to write a great novel.
• Write in a different structure. Write an outline of the section first. Write the summary or conclusion. Get yourself physically out of the spot where you are stuck. I often jump all over my articles putting ideas everywhere and organize later.
• Do more active research. A lot of what people call research is actually procrastination, they are just avoiding needing to write. Active research is engaging with the research, writing notes, clarifying with LLMs, and connecting it to what you’ve already written.
• Edit the previous section. Ernest Hemingway read what he wrote the day before to get back into the rhythm and flow.
• Write without judgement. Ed Sheeran talks about writing as a tap flowing with dirty water. You just have to let it run for a while before you get clean water. You are going to write garbage, but that is much better than writing nothing.
• Give yourself more time. Sleep on it. Be a little bored by what you are writing. Don’t be so quick to declare failure and jump away. All of these give your mind space to process.