By Dr. Noelle Sterne

Q: I know what I want to write about, but I can’t seem to get anything down on the page.            

      — Wordless

A: Writing—whatever the type—is hard. Whether we must write a proposal, dissertation, article, book, or thank you letter, most of us have trouble starting, continuing, and finishing. Like you, I’ve had many tortured writing—or not writing—experiences, as do the clients I coach and whose work I edit. Observing all of our ridiculous roadblocks, I’ve developed eleven tricks to help us ease into or continue our writing. If you need convincing, credible rationales are here too for how each method can help you.

1. Feel Good.

You’ve got to feel well, physically and emotionally. If you’re overly tired, hungry, angry, or worried about something other than your current writing project, when you start to work you will defeat yourself. Dissertation coach Rachna Jain (2014) suggested that you “do what it takes to feel better, first—and then start working. It’s better to have two hours of focused work rather than four hours of so-so work” (para. 1).

How this method helps: You have the energy, focus, and interest to concentrate on the work at hand and may almost enjoy it. As you progress, you dare to feel a small sense of accomplishment, even at a sentence or paragraph.

2. Make Separate Files

For a dissertation or other long work, make separate files, hard copy or computer or both, for the prefatory pages, introduction, chapters, reference list, appendices. Refer to your university handbook, journal specs, or publisher’s requirements for margins, headers, pagination, font style and size, spacing, headings, and hierarchy of subheadings. If a template is supplied, use it. Create your files in the correct format. Later, you will combine all the files for the finished work.

How this method helps: When you separate the work into manageable chunks, you feel you have a handle on it. Even arranging your different files and labeling them, you’re writing something. Thrilled in spite of yourself, you see the parts of the work take shape. You start getting ideas for at least some of the sections and their sequence. And more—when you’re (finally) writing in a particular chapter or section, and a fabulous idea occurs to you for another, as it often does once you immerse, you can quickly click to that other place and type a note for later development. Or, as I did recently with a collection of poems, I kept changing the order of sections—yes, in separate files—to lead the reader to a big finish.

3. Create a Schedule for Doing This Work

Decide on the days/hours to work on this project and write them in your calendar or schedule book. Be realistic—if you’re a morning person and your head is clearest at 7:15 a.m. (shudder), that’s the time to note on your calendar and plunge in. If you know you fade at 8:00 p.m. and are only good for watching Shark Tank, find other times for the writing.

How this method helps: You’re honoring your body clock and preferred working times. No use trying to force the work at what is some ungodly hour for you (see Number 1). Whatever others do or don’t or may dictate as “normal” doesn’t have to affect you, even if you envy their clear heads at 6:45 in the morning. A colleague admitted she sleeps until 10:00 a.m. and then, with several judicious breaks, keeps going until 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning. Whatever works!

4. Start With What’s Obvious or Easy

To begin writing in earnest, choose the easiest subtopic or section (no one has to know). This section may not be the introduction, which is an overview of the whole and often requires immersion in the work before you know what you’re doing. Instead, you might choose a section more straightforward. In a dissertation the section may be recruitment of participants or your data analysis methods. Despite the King’s advice to the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, you don’t have to start at the beginning and keep going until you reach the end. Linear can be overrated.

How this method helps: You actually begin writing and are allowed to congratulate yourself. Warming up, you’ll produce more, arrive at new insights, and gain more confidence and comfort in the project. After a while, to your shock, you may see two solid subsections emerging full-blown or feel your fingers irresistibly typing out the introduction at full speed.

5. Set a Timer

For each writing session, set a timer for 30 or 45 minutes, or 10 or 15. (These are variations of the pomodoro method (Iyengar et al., 2024). Promise yourself a delicious reward when the timer bongs (chocolate chip muffin, all seventeen seasons of that Netflix drama, walk by the lake, 1997 Super Bowl replay).

How this method helps: You’re doing something, anything. Short-term rewards work.

6. Use the Diaper Method

I developed the Diaper Method (soon to be patented) when an author friend with two very small children complained that all she was doing was diapering instead of writing. The light dawned on my friend and me simultaneously: Diapering could be applied, metaphorically, to writing of all kinds!

I thought immediately of my clients suffering through piles of higher and deeper (PhD) university instructions and rubrics, research articles, multipage handouts, endless PowerPoints meant to help, nonstop lists of to-dos, and contradictory research method books. They—you—become paralyzed, not knowing where to point your pen or cursor.

The Diaper Method (DM) can save you, especially with a dissertation, and the DM is almost embarrassingly simple. For example, in No. 2 above, chose an easy subhead. If you print out your chapter subheads, cover everything else on the page, above and below, with a large scrap of paper, Post-Its, or leftover piece of flatbread. If you’re on a computer, press Control + Enter so this subhead is the only thing on the screen.

Now you can concentrate on what you see. Your goal is to create text for this subhead only. When you finish, whether or not you feel the subhead will require more, move the diaper so it reveals your next choice. That’s it.

How this method helps: The Diaper Method is the equivalent of dissertation blinders; you focus only on the task before you. At the same time, you’re handling those horrible thoughts of overwhelm and endlessness (see also Jain, 2011). And too, you begin to feel an unaccustomed (sweet) sense of achievement and allow yourself a little excitement at your progress.

7. Ignore Your Inner Writing Judge

We all have one, whatever the form or persona or archetype, which blares deafeningly or whispers insidiously barrages of self-condemnation at what we’ve just written. To silence this tyrant and its judgment of “Drivel!” repeat to yourself: “It’s only my first draft!” My client Luke emailed me recently: “When I looked at my draft today, I came away disgusted.” Then he wrote wisely, “I know it’s only part of the process.”

How this method helps: You recognize that (a) we all have the Inner Judge and (b) its rantings are part of the process of writing.  (c) Recognizing these truths, you don’t have to give that bully any power—and you have at least two ways of taming it.

8. Tame Your Inner Judge

To silence that relentless Inner Judge, you can shout it back down. But you may have to do a lot of shouting. A good way to assuage it is to jot notes to yourself as you go. When I’ve just written a particularly loathsome sentence and the Judge rages, I type right after the offending passage: “FIX.” When I notice heinous repetitions, like starting three consecutive sentences with the same word, I write “REP!” Or if a phrase is too weak or flowery, or I’m trying too hard to be literary or cute, I add “GET BETTER!” If you must know, my first draft of this article was littered with such notes.

How this method helps: The notes help you to keep going in the face of all the Judge’s pronouncements. You’re telling yourself and your Judge that you do know that the current writing is not your best and you promise to come back in the next draft to FIX, delete the REPs, or GET BETTER.

9. Save It

As bad as you think a draft is, save it. And back up all your drafts, electronically and printed out, whatever makes you feel most secure. I have two external backups for everything, and I back up daily and can sleep at night. You can always delete later—a few months after graduation or publication.

How this method helps: If you remember a particularly brilliant phrase or insight, you can refer back to the older draft to retrieve it. You defend against electronic catastrophes. You can sleep at night.

10. Keep All Your Literature and References

Even if they’re littering your dining table or clogging your hard drive, keep all the print versions and pdfs of your literature, references, and other research. This practice will save you hours of frustrated searching (“Now where did I see that?”). After my client Margie handed in a research paper, she rashly threw out a carton of articles she’d used. When we came to her dissertation on the same topic, she had to hunt again for everything in multiple databases.

You can always purge later, much later.

How this method helps: Even if you have to paw through stacks of stapled articles, you’ve got them. I often make a folder of “research articles” for a client’s work or particular project, with all the pdfs. If you don’t do something similar, and must use your computer “search” function to scan through 300 pdfs, you’ll eventually find what you want.

Another amazing bonus I’ve experienced and clients have related: As you’re hunting through the literature, striking passages in a given article catch your eye. You know they’re perfect for something, even if you don’t yet quite know what. But make a note or a file of the passages, and have faith that you’ll be able to use them in another article or book.

11. Trust Your Inner Mentor

Yes, you have one. The opposite of the Inner Judge, your Inner Mentor (IM) has been called your intuition, internal guidance, inner voice, spirit, higher power, soul, even your heart or gut. It has more power than your chair, your dean, the journal editor-in-chief, and even the guy who issues your annual parking sticker.

Trust your IM to supply ideas and sequences. The American author E. L. Doctorow’s description of writing reminds me of this trust: “[I]t’s like driving a car at night; you never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way” (quoted in Plimpton, 1986, para. 20).

Your IM knows. Access it with a little meditation—two minutes, one, thirty seconds. Ask, and then see and do what’s in front of you. You can make the whole trip. Trust it.

How this method helps: You develop confidence in your IM. You develop the habit of asking it and may find it strangely comforting, not to mention reliable. This confidence doesn’t mean you skip the steps of research, reading, underlining, outlining, cogitating, and all the other intellectual footwork. But that confidence does mean you can turn to your IM at any point and be assured of answers.

* * * * * *

As you put some or all of these methods into effect, you’ll likely find you’re less anxious about starting to write. You’re writing what you need to, maybe even rather smoothly. And then—creative miracle!—you will be getting more and more words on the page.

References

Iyengar, K. P., Vaishya, R., & Botchu, R. (2024). Can we apply pomodoro technique in academic publishing? Apollo Medicine, 21(2), 176-177.

Jain, R. (2011). Get it done: A coach’s guide to dissertation success. Gaithersburg, MD: Moonswept Press.

Jain, R. (2014). Feel better first.

Plimpton, G. (1986). E. L. Doctorow: The art of fiction no. 94. Paris Review, 101.

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Dissertation coach, nurturer, bolsterer, handholder, and editor; scholarly and mainstream writing consultant; author of writing craft, spiritual, and academic articles; and spiritual and motivational counselor, Noelle Sterne has published many pieces in print and online venues, including Author Magazine, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Children’s Book Insider, Graduate Schools Magazine, GradShare, InnerSelf, Inspire Me Today, Transformation Magazine, Unity Magazine, Women in Higher Education, Women on Writing, Writer’s Digest, and The Writer. Noelle’s ninth story for Chicken Soup for the Soul appears in June 2025 in the volume Self-Care Isn’t Selfish. With a Ph.D. from Columbia University, Noelle has for 30 years helped doctoral candidates wrestle their dissertations to completion (finally). Based on her practice, her Challenges in Writing Your Dissertation: Coping with the Emotional, Interpersonal, and Spiritual Struggles (Rowman & Littlefield Education, 2015) addresses students’ often overlooked or ignored but crucial nonacademic difficulties that can seriously prolong their agony. See the PowerPoint teaser here. In Noelle`s Trust Your Life: Forgive Yourself and Go After Your Dreams (Unity Books, 2011), she draws examples from her academic consulting and other aspects of life to help readers release regrets and reach lifelong yearnings. Following one of her own, she is currently working on her third novel. Visit Noelle at www.trustyourlifenow.com