Blank Page Syndrome and How To Deal With It

BLANK PAGEand

SYNDROMEHOW TO DEAL WITH IT

WHAT ARE YOUAFRAID OF?

BLANK PAGE SYNDROME: The inability to begin a

new project due to one or more barriers, real or imagined.

These barriers usually manifest themselves as an irrational fear of some kind.

WHO DOES IT AFFECT?WRITERSARTISTS

DEVELOPERSand...

anyone who has ever wantedto create anything, ever.

LET’S TALK ABOUT FEARFear of failureFear of success

(yes, this is a thing)

Fear of imperfectionFear of not being as good as “so-and-so”

Fear of infinite choicesImpostor syndrome

Someone else has alreadydone it better

FEAR OF FAILUREFailure is normal and, in fact, necessary

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.”

— Thomas Edison

“Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.”

— Truman Capote

“

FEAR OF IMPERFECTION

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.”

— Scott Adams

““I know this won’t turn out perfectly, so why bother?”

Have no fear of perfection -- you'll never reach it.”

— Salvador Dalí

“

I’LL NEVER BE AS GOODAS ____________

Comparison is the death of joy.”

— Mark Twain“

insert name here

Never compare your inside with someone else’s outside.

FEAR OF INFINITE CHOICES

SO HOW DO WE DEAL WITH IT?

GENERAL TIPS & TRICKSGet a change of scenery.

Don’t get hung up on tools, apps, etc.

Set a timer for short, productive bursts.

Apply pressure (deadlines).

Participate in challenges.

Outline and/or mind map.

GENERAL TIPS & TRICKSMy mind-map of this Tech Talk

http://literatureandlatte.com/scapple.php

GENERAL TIPS & TRICKS

Work undistracted for 25-minute intervals with 5-minute breaks in between.

http://pomodorotechnique.com/

GENERAL TIPS & TRICKS

Change your location.

my writing nook

FOR WRITERSStart in the middle.

Write the ending first.Write longhand.

Keep an ongoing list of ideas.Set attainable daily word count goals.

Commit to something publicly(ie, finish a short story this month, NaNoWriMo, etc)

READ.

FOR WRITERSKeep a list of ideas handy. Apps are great, but index cards work fine.

http://literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php

BLOGGER’S BLOCK?Find a way to put a new spin on a subject.

Solved a hard problem? Blog about it.

Made a huge mistake? Write aboutwhat you learned from it.

Break from predictable formats.

FOR ARTISTS & DESIGNERSStudy artists you admire.

Replicate art you love to learn technique.

Participate(art challenges, drink & draws)

Create for yourself first, not social media.(DeviantArt, Dribbble, Instagram, Twitter)

Find examples of your hero’s early works(They once sucked, too)

FOR ARTISTS & DESIGNERS

First Penny Arcade comic, 1998

FOR ARTISTS & DESIGNERS

Penny Arcade, 2013

FOR DEVELOPERSDon’t get paralyzed over what tools to use.

(Boostrap, Foundation, Backbone, Ember, Angular, Yeoman, Grunt, Bower, Node, Rails, Django, blah, blah blah)

Don’t agonize over structure.

Code gets cleaned up and optimized over time.

Work on small, short side projects.

“Perfect” is the enemy of “working”

Compartmentalize functionality(Look at small chunks, not the entire project)

ON MOTIVATIONSet attainable daily goals, word counts, etc

Commit to some goal publicly.

Hook up with like-minded creators. Build a network.

Develop a routine.

Remove distractions.This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until its done. It's that easy, and that hard.”

— Neil Gaiman

“

SMALL WINS == LARGER SUCCESSWrite short stories (or blogs) and collect into a

self-published book at the end of the year.

Create proof-of-concepts on Codepen.

Build small plugins and share on Github.

Blog about dev issues you’ve facedand your solutions.

Sketch every few days and publish a yearly sketch book collection.

SMALL WINS == LARGER SUCCESS

Write a short story every week. It's not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row.”

— Ray Bradbury

“

SO GO MAKE SOMETHING

THANK YOU!

aj@bignerdranch.com@AtlantaJones

ANDREW JONES