Never return to a blank page

Ernest Hemmingway believed that the best thing for a writer to do when things were going well was to stop writing. As he explained, “if everything’s going well and you know exactly where the end of the chapter’s going to go and you know just what the people are going to do, you don’t go on writing and writing until you come to the end of it, because when you do, then you say, well, where am I going to go next?”

Roald Dahl was a firm believer in this idea. So much so, in fact, that he believed the secret to staying motivated and on task with one’s writing was to never return to a blank page.

“Put in practice while working,” the folks at Lifehacker have argued, this approach “can apply far beyond just writers… By keeping yourself motivated to return to a milestone or project you feel comfortable with, you may find it easier to keep making progress.”

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