How to Write When You’re Out of Ideas

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Pick up the pen and write one sentence. Just do it. The words will come, trust me. The ink will flow. Just write one sentence. The rest will follow.

In his memoir, ‘A Moveable Feast’, Hemingway writes:

‘Do not worry. You always have written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.’

It's a 6-Step Process… 

1. Write one sentence. Literally, whatever comes to your mind.

I once started with  ‘It’s a Sunday morning and it’s beautiful outside.’ and also ‘Ahhhh..I don’t know know what to say, let’s see….’. Both these sentences led on to actual essays that I later published on my blog. It’s all about getting those juices flowing.

2. Write another sentence. And then another… And then another.

Your first few sentences might be absolutely boring, pointless and even frivolous. But the act of writing them down gets your mind working. When I was struggling to come up with ideas for my college application essay back in 2013, someone suggested this idea to me - to sit down with a notebook, think of the one overarching idea or direction, and just write literally whatever came to my mind for 20 minutes. It really worked!

3. Repeat step 2 for 20 minutes. Set an alarm/timer if needed.

Don’t stop and think. Keep the pen moving nonstop for 20 minutes. Like I said, a lot of what comes out will be rubbish. And that’s okay.

4. Come back to what you wrote after a few hours, or even days.

You’ll notice that out of the 1000 words of trash that you wrote, there are perhaps 200 words of good writing or good ideas at least.

5. Take those sentences and those ideas which are good and expand on them.
6. Edit and Revise.

P.s. — Often in creative writing, you don’t exactly know what you’re going to write- you don’t know the end of your story, poem or essay. You can’t always have a plan. Sometimes, you have to let things flow naturally. You just need to start.