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how to start

Begin your college essay anywhere

March 21, 2016 by Sara Nolan

How to begin writing your college essay? Sometimes it feels harder than bench pressing 3x your weight. Sometimes it feels harder than plucking hairs with your non-dominant hand. Sometimes it feels harder than spelling French words correctly. But it doesn't have to. Faced with the challenge of how to begin, just begin. That is, go around the challenge by refusing to see it as a challenge. Overwrite the fear, inertia, or blank feeling by starting right there, using it as your prompt. Freewrite from this moment Caffeinate yourself until you see double, turn down the sound of babies crying and your neighbor's weird fetish for Frank Sinatra, turn down the sound of siblings having the same old fight, parents barking, friends texting....and start there. I mean, you could start with any of the things listed above, the particulars of your life. Or you could start with the emotion-- or lack of emotion-- that facing an essay brings up. For example, you might set a timer, take a few deep breaths and start: "At this moment, I am staring at the page, well aware that what I put on this page is supposed to be super talented, attractive, and make me sound as Good as Friday. To handle this amount of pressure and anxiety, I am on my third Starbucks Peppermint Latte, which I got with my last dollar for the week, and now I add to my list of crappy things that I might not be able to sleep for a month from the amount of stimulant coursing through my blood, and I notice all the other people working nearby-- I'm in the library-- and that they all seem to be typing freely and easily, so I have to believe they are updating their social media accounts, not writing an application essay.  I just noticed that is the longest sentence ever..." Will you win the Pulitzer for this content? Likely not, but if you do, please mention that this blog helped you get going. That said, who cares?  The way you get over not knowing where to begin is by  Continue Reading …

Filed Under: Exercise, Questions, State of Mind, Uncategorized, Writing Tips Tagged With: anxiety, college essay, Free-writing, how to start, start writing, writer's block

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