Blank pages are scary on purpose. They’re holding space for something you haven’t written yet.

Emptiness is uncomfortable because it offers no instructions and no way to be correct. A page with nothing on it can become anything, and that range is exactly what makes it intimidating. The fear is not a sign you have nothing to say but a side effect of having too many options at once. Once anything is down, the size of the problem drops.

Write the worst possible first line on purpose and keep going from there. Give yourself ten minutes with no requirement that any of it be good. You can fix words that exist, and you cannot fix words that do not.