Starting with a blank page

The hardest part of content creation is starting with nothing. Putting down the first words on a blank page is like staring over the edge of a cliff. This first blog post seems a good place to talk about this phenomenon of a gapping white chasm of intimidating white space.

How do you grab attention quickly, summarise within the first few sentences what you want to get across. Then expand and go into detail without being dull.

Make a bullet point list of the things you want to say.

Don't think too much about the style of you piece when you start.

Don't worry if you are repeating phrases or words. You can change these later.

Try explaining what you want to say out loud, turn on dictate mode and let that capture your initial ideas.

Imagine who you want to read this as a person and write what you would say as a conversation.

Remember, no one reads your first draft, or your second, or your third.

Take a break and look at it with fresh eyes this helps you come back with new ideas to make the changes and improvements.

Find something online which is similar and use this as a starting point.

There is no need to fear a blank page, making a rough outline plan, then going back to fill in the details and editing is the way all writers work if it is for a novel or a tweet!