Writers are supposed to have all the words right? Well, that’s what I thought in the beginning too. Unfortunately the words don’t always come so easy.
That’s what some people would call writer’s block. I’m not so convinced that writer’s get blocked. I think that we run out of things to say from time to time. Unfortunately for some of us, we run out of things to say about the time a deadline looms.
I find that the beginnings of my articles are harder to write than anything. It’s not for lacking enough information or research material. No, I’m usually all set on that end. Rather it’s all about getting the words to flow well.
Think about it. What part of your article do you find that you edit the most?
For me it’s definitely the beginning. It takes about three paragraphs before I find my groove and really get into it. That’s normal so says William Zinsser, author of On Writing Well. Until I started reading On Writing Well, I thought I was working my way through nearly every article haphazardly or that I was faced with writer’s block. Sometimes I would struggle so much with the beginnings of articles, I would put them off as long as possible; sure that I was experiencing some kind of block. The thing about the block is that I could see the middle and even end of the article with no problem.
Once I read Zinsser’s book and learned that many article beginnings are rough because writers don’t always get their voice until the middle of the article, I was better able to understand my problem. The beginnings didn’t look like mountains I couldn’t climb anymore. I began to loosen up and expect that the introductory paragraphs to be jagged around the edges. I resolved to sit down later and accept that the beginning might need some reworking. Once I was able to make peace with my uneasiness over those first few sentences and paragraphs, the words came out and I could finally hear my voice again.
Sometimes it’s not a block or wall that keeps us from writing but it’s that we can’t hear our voice. It can start out as a whisper; barely audible. We fight it, thinking that we are blocked but if we listen and relax a little bit, we eventually can hear it, mumbling, then speaking plainly to us.
Oh, I have occasional bouts of trouble with endings. I can write a killer beginning, sail through the meat of it, then I sort of stall, looking for a neat ending. Thank God it’s not often.
See and I’m the opposite. I usually have my neat ending thought out way before the beginning. I wonder if that means I’m backwards in my thought process.
I always have had trouble with the first sentence. I feel like if it doesn’t come out sounding just perfect, the rest of the article will suck. Therefore, I tend to procrastinate A LOT because I’m scared of that first sentence. I’m working on some tricks to getting my mind past this…we’ll see how it goes.