"Never start on a blank page": Why it takes so long to write and how to write faster

What turned a 200-hundred-words-a-day, stuck-in-the-rut wannabe into a professional copywriter, who routinely hits 2000 words every 4 hours?

Two words: Word Pooling.

Here's my story:

I discovered a talent for writing when I was in school. I could write better than almost all of my classmates. Better grammar. Better style. Better diction. Don't get me wrong. I am not boasting.

Once I got started, vivid prose flowed right out of my pen. The phrase to watch out for here is "Once I got started".

Getting started bedevilled my creative life. Despite my obvious gift for writing, I consistently failed to turn in my assignments on time. I would write a few lines, tear off the page, crumple it into a ball and toss it into a bin. I filled many bins. My classmates shined with straight A's. I struggled to just get started. At one point, I began to dread writing. The gift had turned into a curse.

Years later, the curse followed me into my career. Now as a professional copywriter, I still continued to struggle to get started. Many deadlines were missed. Many clients were unhappy. One day, my line manager, who was himself a creative with an illustrious history, watched me struggle to write a simple 1000-word blog. He made an uncanny observation, which made me realise what was wrong all along. He said, "You are a talented guy, but you always start writing on a blank page. Terrible, terrible mistake." Of course!

When you start on a blank page, you are relying on "inspiration" to give you that magic phrase which will get your creative juices flowing. The thing is, though, "inspiration" seldom comes from thin air.

This is why starting on a blank page misfires and leads to crumpled papers and missed deadlines.

Never Start On A Blank Page: An Alternative Paradigm for Creativity

Over the course of my career, I have created an alternative paradigm for my creativity that is not so entirely dependent on "inspiration". I call my 7-step strategy "Word Pooling". Here are the steps:

1.Go to a trusted/inspiring source of information on the topic you are working and start taking out words, phrases and sentences that stand out to you. Copy them to a word document (or notebook).

2. Now reflect on what you just read and the words that you wrote. Your thoughts should be bubbling up already. Words, phrases and sentences will occur to you. Write them down in no particular order with just hyphens between them. For example, here is my word pool for this article:

Creativity is hard - getting started - how to get started - I struggled - school was a nightmare because I never knew how to get started - manager's remark about my poor productivity - decided to try something new - building blocks of books? - paragraphs - building block of paragraphs - sentences - phrases - words - start with the most basic - words - word pooling.

3. If you are unable to think of anything, go back to step 1, but to a different source, and try again.

4. Once you have completed step 2, start putting words together into sentences. The sentences do not have to be grammatically right or stylistically well written. You just need sentences. For example, here's how I started:

Creativity is hard because getting started is hard. Despite being able to write well, I struggled in school and failed to turn in assignments on time because I could never get started. It was a nightmare which continued even well into my career, until one day, when my manager made a remark about my poor productivity.

5. Now rewrite the sentences until they are all grammatically correct.

6. Once step 5 is completed to your satisfaction, start adding concrete details and expand the sentences into paragraphs, without any concern about whether they connect well with each other.

7. Once the paragraphs have been completed, create hooks between paragraphs. "Hooks" are just words, phrases and ideas that you can use from the pervious paragraph to tie it to the next paragraph. Hooking paragraphs together makes the written piece work together as one, consistent whole. This is the last step. Once you have completed it, you will have your entire piece. Now is the time to proofread and make stylistic changes.

Why does this method work?

As creatives, we are all the same. We are infuriatingly focused on quality of the output. We want to produce our best output every single time. An impossible feat for the best of us.

Unless we have created enough quantity, we cannot create quality!

We have to churn out a lot of trash first before we can pick the gems out of it. This means that we must leave quality alone until the very last moment. This is exactly what Word Pooling is about. It is about just writing without any care for quality. Just jot down your thoughts, in no particular order, and without concern for any rules of grammar. We start with the most basic elements of written word: words.

It shifts our attention away from the crippling desire to get the grammar and style right the first time, and focus on what really matters most: ideas. The best style cannot still hide poor ideas.