Here’s the thing. I love to write okay? I love writing a lot, I could write shit all day. The written word is an incredibly beautiful thing to me, the ability to package your voice on a flat surface (or a circular one if you’re into that Ashokan stuff) and send it across long distances for people to absorb it at their own speed, with their own interpretations and biases kinda gets me hot and bothered 🥵.
But the only problem that exists is the fact that you have to actually write it, and the only problem with that is this dumb, ineffectual blank page with a blinking doddypoll1 standing line on it that mocks you. Look at ye dumbface, creased forehead bitch trying to type something useful on this screen ye dum-dum doody bum, the blinking cursor says to me, why it speaks like the Easter Island head from Night at the Museum with an English Honors degree? I will never know.
So what can we do? What can possibly be done about the doddypoll (i.e. the blinking cursor)? Today I submit to you, 5 things I do when I wish Charles Kiesling2 wasn’t born.
Give Up
Did you think this list was going to be purely solution-oriented? I just said these are 5 things that I do, why do you think you haven’t gotten a single newsletter in months? tricked ya, didn’t I? Well, my friends, it’s true. Sometimes all you can do is submit to the supremacy of the doddypoll, to let it laugh and spit in your face (stop touching yourself) and close the document in shame, as you nestle back into bed with your phone, open Instagram to like more Tumblr screenshots about how hard it is to be a writer, and how having a typewriter would fix your life (it’s true tho, i’m currently typing this on a typewriter, trust me). Giving up may seem the most counter-intuitive thing to do when you’re trying to pry the written word out of Neptune’s butt cheeks (I said stop touching yourself) but sigh, it’s something that I do a lot.
Stop, breathe and think of a topic
This sounds like it’ll work, right? If only you know what you want to write about, you’ll be able to write, correct? Wrong. That’s so wrong, you’re wrong. Did I mention that you were wrong? Good, cause you’re definitely not write (see what I did there hahahahahaha). For some reason, this doesn’t work for me. Even if I know what I want to write about, I still can’t start writing. This is the closest I’ve ever been to Spongebob, and that’s saying something cause I dressed up like him for Halloween once.
Okay, now for the helpful stuff.
Refer to your notes
This actually works, but it requires effort.
Often, even if I don’t know what I want to write about, I know where the writing will end up. If I’m writing on the blog, I know the writing will be about productivity, creativity, or something along those lines. If I’m writing for college, I know that Quillbot and Sci-Hub exist.
On a serious note, irrespective of what you’re trying to write, it’s a good idea to refer to something you’ve written already. This is where a note-taking habit comes in handy, some people say that this habit can change your life. (If you want to learn more about taking notes, and how to best do so, you can refer to these resources, or you can even have a chat with me).
The basic flow looks like this: 1) Search through your notes to find something in the area you need to write something for; 2) Find something you haven’t written on yet or something you can write more about; 3) Compile all that information on one surface (Obsidian.md’s Canvas Feature is super handy for this); 4) Study this information and try to figure out how you can weave all of this stuff together; 5) Write.
This is the thing that works most often for me, but like I said it requires effort. Effort in the form of building, maintaining, and effectively utilizing a Notetaking system, which is another Newsletter’s worth of stuff (Coming soon*). So what do you do when you need to write right now?
* Please construe ‘soon’ as any time between tomorrow and next year
ChatGPT
Yeah, baby, that’s right - we’re bringing in AI to solve our existential, poetic, artistic downfall. That Doddypoll? it’s now a Deadypoll, cause it can’t withstand the weight of that phat stack of cash Daddy Satya Nadella dropped on OpenAI.
Here’s how I’ve been using ChatGPT to find essay topics for my college assignments
Like I said, I know why I’m writing on this topic/where the final written product will end up, so I asked what are some things worth writing about.
Then I asked it to give me more information about what I can write about under a specific topic, and finally, a super specific question related to my goal. After doing my own research, I’ll refer to my notes and start writing. If you’re super lazy then you could even give the application a list of points you want to write a paragraph out of, and it will do it for you like I did here:
(By the way, my Habit Tracker Template just went live on Notion and it’s completely free so if you’re interested in that shit check it out: https://sigh.gumroad.com/l/simplehabits)
I do not recommend getting the AI bot to write whole pieces of content for you, there are several reasons for this and I can’t go over all of them, an excellent resource for you to learn more about ChatGPT and its capabilities is to watch this podcast snippet:
But if you’ve been scrolling through LinkedIn or Twitter recently, you probably know all about it.
Switch off the editor and critic
If you know what you want to write, if you have the information, but just don’t know how to put it into words, then this is what you should be doing. I understand that this is not just a mental thing, and that’s why I do the following:
Switch off Grammarly or any other feature of your writing app that detects errors as soon as you start typing
Use this website (at your own risk): https://www.squibler.io/dangerous-writing-prompt-app
I have thoughts about Grammarly because it does not recognize the Oxford comma, but it’s a useful tool while writing e-mails to judgy people. Squibler’s dangerous writing app has been super useful when I just need to bang out a lot of words quickly, the Doddypoll-induced-chokehold (Stop touching yourself) dies when faced with the prospect of losing all your work within 5 seconds of writing it.
Conclusion
The blank page exists to haunt us, but it is also the best metaphor for potential. There are so many idioms and phrases about how important blank pages are (tbh it’s the doddypoll that is the problem). Learning to get around the blank page is one of life’s biggest challenges - especially if you’re trying to be a creator (that was not serious, there are bigger challenges in life, like getting pringles out of their can).
If you have any other tips, tricks, or strategies to help you get writing work done, then leave a comment, or reply to this e-mail (or write to thepurank.blog@gmail.com)
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/doddypoll (you’re welcome)
The inventor of the blinking cursor, and also: our doom