Writing is what I do for a living. It is also what I do here, on Just Me, when something catches my attention and I want to explore it. You might think that combination would make starting easy. Open a document, put your fingers on the keyboard, and off you go. If only.
Sometimes you know the subject, have your sources ready, and even have a reasonable idea of what you want to say. Yet the first paragraph refuses to appear. Or you write three sentences and immediately start rearranging them, as if the rest of the article will somehow emerge from getting those first fifty words exactly right.
I regularly come across tips for getting the writing process going when the words won’t come. Here are five that sometimes work for me—and might be worth trying when you’re stuck, too.
1. Tell the story before you type it
Imagine someone asking what your article is about. You would probably give them an answer without spending ten minutes deciding on the opening sentence. That is the idea behind talking through a draft. Record yourself explaining the subject. What happened? Why did it catch your attention? What is confusing, surprising, or relevant about it? Allow yourself to ramble a little. You can use a transcription tool afterwards, or simply listen back and pull out the useful bits. A spoken explanation does not have to look like finished writing. It gives you material, and material is much easier to edit than an empty page.
2. Give yourself five minutes to write something imperfect
Set a timer and keep writing until it rings. Leave awkward sentences alone. If you cannot remember a detail, put a note in brackets and move on. The aim is to get a rough version out of your head. Tools can help here. For example, Ilys (https://www.ilys.com/) restricts what you can see while writing, preventing you from endlessly revisiting earlier sentences. Or use an app called The Most Dangerous Writing App, which has a simple yet dangerous approach: stop typing for too long during a session and your text disappears (https://www.squibler.io/dangerous-writing-prompt-app). I think I would start with an ordinary timer. Having software threaten to delete my work sounds like an additional source of stress. But the underlying exercise makes sense: give drafting a few uninterrupted minutes before editing gets its turn.
3. Draw the connections
Sometimes the problem is that there are too many things to say, and they are all trying to become the first paragraph. Put the subject in the middle of a sheet of paper. Around it, add the main questions, examples, consequences, and loose thoughts. Draw connections where you see them. You can do this in a mind-mapping application, but pen-and-paper is perfectly adequate. For a technical article, those branches might include how something works, who uses it, what it costs, and where the limitations are. Seeing those elements together may help you find a route through the subject. You can decide on the sentences once you know where you are going.
4. Ask AI to ask you questions
People often ask AI questions. But let’s turn that around and have AI ask us questions instead. Given my experiments with AI and tools for journalism, this feels like a natural approach. An AI conversation can help you find a way into a subject by asking questions you haven’t yet considered. Try something like: “I want to write about this subject. Ask me one question at a time to help me work out what I want to say.” You could also ask which parts of your explanation are unclear, or what a reader unfamiliar with the topic would need to know. Answering a specific question can be easier than producing an introduction on demand. Those answers become useful raw material. You still need to check facts and decide what belongs in the piece, but you have started exploring the subject in words.
5. Fill eight small boxes
This is probably the simplest experiment of the lot. Fold a sheet of paper three times, unfold it, and you have eight sections. Give yourself one minute per section to write a sentence, a question, an example, or a short phrase. Eight minutes later, you have eight possible starting points. The small spaces make the task feel manageable. One box might contain the central question. Another might hold an anecdote. A third could reveal something you still need to look up. There is no obligation to turn them into eight paragraphs; they are pieces you can arrange and develop.
I like that this requires almost no preparation. No account, no configuration, no new writing environment to spend the evening setting up. Although, knowing my interest in building tools, turning it into a small application would be tempting. Perhaps I should fill the boxes first. That would at least give me something to write about 🙂