What is scarier than “The Ring”? More terror-inducing than a roller coaster? The blank white screen and its partner in horror, the blinking cursor.

Even professional writers, maybe especially professional writers, hate the sight of them. If you have to write for work or for school, you are likely familiar with how that screen can make your mind go blank just when you need most need it to produce words, preferably strung together in memorable sentences.

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As someone who has been a freelance copywriter for 20 years, I often stare at the blank white page for far too long before starting in on my latest assignment. That practice has led to a secret for turning white to write. It consists of one word: start.

So as not to scare myself, I call this “putting my notes in order.” If you don’t have notes, call it “organizing my thoughts.” Organizing is not so intimidating as writing. I’m not writing a draft. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It’s just putting the notes I have gathered in order.

Ten More Tips

That’s the first step. These are the rest of the steps to writing yourself into a polished piece of writing, whether it’s a homework assignment, blog post, article, website content, grant proposal, letter, or something else:

2. Let those notes/thoughts sit for as long as you can—anywhere from an hour or two to a day usually works. Go for a walk. Sleep on it. Have some lunch.

3. Reread, organize into some sort of order.

4. Walk away again. Sleep on this draft if you can.

5. Re-organize. Revise.

6. Give it a rest.

7. By now, when you reread, you should see something that makes you reasonably happy and you can tweak it. Add a creative, effective headline. If not, keep repeating the steps above until you are happy with it. (And if not does happen. It’s happened to me many times. Don’t let it worry you into a brain freeze.)

8. Let it rest again.

9. Reread with a critical eye. If you are happy, then let someone else read it to find any typos, grammatical errors, awkward phrases, etc. If you don’t have the luxury of a “someone else,” put your editor’s hat on and do it yourself. First read for flow and expression. Make any revisions you want. Then read slowly to edit and proof for mistakes.

10. Use spellcheck for a final check for errors.

11. Last, be happy. You have gone from a blank page to a piece of writing you can use. It’s worth a pat on the back.

Sherri Alms has been overcoming writer’s block for her clients for more than 20 years. Let her save you from the blinking cursor. Email her to discuss your organization’s writing needs.