Whenever I get writer’s block, it’s always due to one cause: I’m terrified of writing something bad.

What if this idea isn’t interesting enough? What’s the best way to start this piece? How will I structure my argument? What even is my argument?

The considerations can be paralyzing. There are days where I’ve spent literal hours staring at a blank text editor, unsure what to do and how to start.

Here’s an idea: just write anything down. Anything remotely interesting that comes to your mind. Just one line. And then elaborate on that line as if you were explaining it to a child. And then keep going and going, making wild and brilliant tangents in the process, until you discover something in your messy pile you can write about for a post.

It’s messy and unprofessional. Your sentences don’t make grammatical sense, the logic disappears then reappears again paragraphs later, and there are misspelled words and missing punctuation everywhere.

But from this chaos comes form, and with the tools of editing and hindsight, you can shape the form into something tangible; something beautiful. Like all sculptures beginning as a messy block, so too can we carve out ideas from our block of words and experience.

It all begins with one line.