Writer's Block

Sometimes it's hard to get started writing. I read all kinds of essays where the first paragraph is almost nonsense. Words, sentence fragments, just ideas that only barely relate to what a person really wants to write about. It takes almost a full page to get to the good stuff. We worry so much about that first word. What is it going to be? Where will it lead us? Is it going to be a good word, the right word? But the first word doesn't matter at all. We can always delete whatever it is. We can replace it with something else. The important thing is to start writing, whatever that writing is.


Once we get going, though, people tend to want to hold on to this freewriting as if it is the actual beginning of whatever they are writing. But we need to come to terms with loss. Not all of our words are the best ones or the right ones. Sometimes, we just have to get the words going. The point is don't be afraid to get rid of what you had to write before you knew what you were writing. Give the reader the best of what you come up with, even if that's a lot less than what you have. The reader will appreciate the good stuff.