Quite often, I have come across the phenomena of 'Writers Block', with people often stating that the blank white page is daunting in some way. This seems to be some kind of mind virus that once you know of the condition you somehow sub-conciously go looking for it. There you are faced with a blank page and strangely the mind just goes blank... funny that.
If you observe the possible alternatives, i.e., A page full of pictures and writing - then that condition would guide you to discuss maybe the subject of those words and pictures and not conjure something new from your imagination.
"The Pleasure of Writing
Sometimes when the printer is waiting for an article which really should have been sent to him the day before, I sit at my desk and wonder if there is any possible subject in the whole world upon which I can possibly find anything to say. On one such occasion I left it to Fate, which decided, by means of a dictionary opened at random, that I should deliver myself of a few thoughts about goldfish. (You will find this article later on in the book.) But to-day I do not need to bother about a subject. To-day I am without a care. Nothing less has happened than that I have a new nib in my pen.
In the ordinary way, when Shakespeare writes a tragedy, or Mr. Blank gives you one of his charming little essays, a certain amount of thought goes on before pen is put to paper. One cannot write "Scene I. An Open Place. Thunder and Lightning. Enter Three Witches," or "As I look up from my window, the nodding daffodils beckon to me to take the morning," one cannot give of one's best in this way on the spur of the moment. "
First two paragraphs of Not that it Matters by A A Milne.
Imagination can be a hard thing to induce but in essence like hearing you can't actually turn this feature off. An example of this would be 'eyelids', in other words - You can shut your eyes any time you like and the world around you disappears, but evolution hasn't quite managed 'earlids' or 'imaginationlids' for that matter, and as such the problem isn't that your imagintion isn't working, its more to do with what you have focussed on.
So a blank page is the gateway to your imagination and you just need a subject and a 'point' that you wish to make about that subject in order to get the imagination going - a seed if you will. Quite often I won't approach a blank page unless I already have the subject and a point to make.
There are many other predicaments that may arise such as :-
Distractions - try to get your self in a place where there are no distractions or reasons to stop the process of writing. This is more important than you would think. In todays day and age what with phone calls, television, emails, notifications, doorstep sellers and alarm clocks the amount of distractions has reached cacophonic levels and this can be one of the biggest burdons to a creative mind. Turn off your phone, turn the telly off, disable email notifications, get a sticker on your front door that say's "My dog eats doorstep sellers for breakfast" (even if you don't have a dog) and remove any chance of being distracted. But if this is not possible, don't let that stop you from writing. In fact if it is an unstoppable distraction then maybe start by writing about the distraction itself.
Literacy - This is not as big a problem as your fear will tell you. Fear of being judged by others is possibly the biggest hurdle any artist will come across - it affects everyone. From your first words to your last, your mind will always play this game with you, although as you approach your last words i'm pretty sure fear won't get much of a 'look-in'. So write like its your last peice! No matter what your literacy level is, your 'subject matter' and your 'point' are the most important part and anyone who criticises your work based on literacy is missing the essence of what you are saying, and doesn't deserve the right to an opinion.
Lack of subject matter - As you can see from the A A Milne exerpt above, you need subject matter and without it your writing will have no chance to make 'The Point' that you are trying to make. So for this you need to do the opposite of the above section 'Distractions'. What I mean by this is - Go out into the world as you would normally but instead of thinking about what you like or don't like, ask yourself 'Is this a subject I want to write about?'. Use your likes and dislikes as a guide. Get angry about something, find love in something, but what ever you do don't stare at blank pages. The fact is that we form opinion all the time and never really transmit it. So you can write about anything, literally ANYTHING, the only thing stopping you is you.
