Distance yourself from the writing and the audience
Sometimes you might be worried about who is going to be reading your work. Perhaps you’ve got a big, mean, evil teacher who intimidates the students? Not to worry. There are two things you can do to help you start the writing process.
First up, pretend (yes, pretend) that your teacher isn’t going to be anywhere near your piece of writing, ever. Yeah, yeah, pretending may seem a bit childish, but it can be quite useful in this situation. Now, you’re not stupid right? So you know that the teacher is going to read your piece of writing. You only need to keep it up for a little while though - just long enough to overcome your case of writer’s block.
The second thing you can pretend is that you are not who you think you are. Say you’re writing an essay on the perception of robotic technology in society in the future. Pretend you’re not an average student at some school struggling to do their work. Instead, you’re the world expert on the topic. You get paid big $$$ to present lectures to lesser mortals on the topic. No-one in the world knows more than you about the topic.
Now, it should be easy to put words on paper - you know you’re right, and you know that the audience has a healthy respect for what you say because you are the best in the world at what you do.
One note of caution: make sure that once you’ve overcome your writer’s block and have a rough draft down on paper, you switch out of this mode. If you keep it up too long, you may get too cocky! Remember, you’re not really the world expert on the matter at hand, and you’re going to make mistakes. Make sure you keep an eye out for them and check that what you’re saying can be backed up by evidence or reasonable arguments.
Click here to move on to the next topic: Speak the paper instead of writing it