I will show you a writer’s fear, in a handful of pics:
Frightening, isn’t it?
The blank page, that is. And that damn little flashing cursor, mocking your fragile writer’s psyche blink by blink. Of course the cursor isn’t the real problem. Blame your Inner Critic, the voice whispering ‘ugh, that’s not nearly good enough if you want to sell in a market that’s full of guys like George Martin and Pat Rothfuss’ when you try to jot down the first words of your new fantasy epic. Or, it’s the part of you that snickers under its breath when a cliché somehow ekes its way into your prose, though you have tried to be diligent. The Inner Critic is a useful bastard when editing and polishing, but not EVER when facing the white eternity of a blank page, poised to create.
Your only viable response?
KICK THAT ASSHOLE IN THE TEETH AND WRITE LIKE A CRAZY PERSON!
Really.
Uncork those creative juices and let the words roll forth, in all their terrible glory. When the backspace button offers a friendly smile, KICK HIM IN THE TEETH, TOO! because in a first draft, ain’t nobody got time for that. Backspace is for revision, not creation. In fact, backspace is the opposite of what you’re trying to do when you sit down to tackle a pesky ‘blank page’.
Some folks call their Inner Critic ‘writer’s block’ and, since this is such a well-known issue, accept the fact that their creative brain is diseased for at least the rest of the day, contenting themselves with email checking and Tumblr tumbling. The concept of ‘writer’s block’ has never made sense to me, simply because it’s not a valid excuse for other professions, so it shouldn’t be for mine, either.
(As an aside, could you imagine a construction worker getting to the job-site and suffering from ‘jackhammer block’? “Steve, why the hell aren’t you working?” “Sorry boss, but today I’ve got jackhammer block. I just can’t jackhammer. I’ll be playing Candy Crush over here if you need me…”)
Getting words on the page, therefore, is of paramount importance. Everything else can and must come later. Anyway, if you believe that Martin or Rowling or Rothfuss or any other famous writer’s first draft was glorious, wonderful, etcetera, well… you shouldn’t. Those folks had a great idea, wrote it down, and then polished it into the shiny work that we see today. In fact, thinking anything else demeans the work that those authors had to put into their manuscripts in order to sell them. Phew *steps off soap-box*
In conclusion, here’s a picture of some mountains:
