I recently joined HerCampus and was (and still am) extremely nervous about what I will be writing about. There are so many different things to explore and I had no idea where to start. So naturally, I emailed our editor-in-chief, asking what articles are, can, or should be about. She sent back a long email, with lots of different ideas about potential writing topics. I could pursue fun topics, like my favorite movies, songs, and books, or I could pursue heavier ones, like navigating college, women’s rights, or the political environment we live in. With endless ideas in front of me, it seemed like it would be easy to find a topic and write about it.
Boy, was I wrong.
I couldn’t decide. I wanted my first article to be something that stuck out to me. And nothing was. But finally, it hit me. After leaving my fiction workshop class with the assignment to write four pages of anything, I was terrified. My professor wanted us to start completely from scratch with our ideas. My mind was blank. I sat down to ignore it when I realized it: write about not knowing what to write about.
So here I am, trying to tackle this semi-meta idea.
It’s daunting to try and figure out what you want to write about. It happens every day, I guarantee it—whether it’s trying to decide how to word a text, what to caption your Instagram post, or what research topic you want to pursue for a final paper.
I’m a writer. And I struggle with finding a topic to write about every day. To combat that, here are a few things I try to do (aside from opening a blank document and then changing tabs so I won’t see it).
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Take a break. Do your laundry, the dishes, or run to the store. Sometimes all you need to do is to get up from that laptop for a bit and do something else.
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Retrace your day. If you like to write at night, this is especially handy. Going through your day can help you think of funny, goofy things that happened that could be fun to write about.
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Read. Reading other people’s work can help distract you from your own topic and it gets you experience. If you’re trying to write a paper, read some cool articles related to the field you’re in. Something will probably pop up.
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Eat candy / sugary food. Nothing is worse than the dead feeling you get from staring at a computer screen for too long. Getting up and grabbing a handful of M&Ms gives you a quick break, plus a little sugar boost.
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Say no to social media. I don’t mean delete it, but don’t go on it. Trust me, it seems like a good idea. You only mean to go on Instagram for a minute or so, scrolling for new posts. 20 minutes later and you’re down the meme rabbit hole.
These are definitely not the only things you could do, nor are they the only ones I do; they are, though, the ones I do the most. The most important part of this (and anything, really), is finding the method that best suits you in the environment you’re in. Good luck writing!