There is something wonderfully suspicious about a blank page.
You sit down at your laptop. Cursor blinking. Coffee beside you. Document open. And yet... nothing.
You need an idea. A sentence. A starting point. A spark.
So you stare harder.
Then perhaps you open another tab. Search for inspiration. Ask AI for a prompt. Ask for ten more. Suddenly, you have 47 ideas and somehow even less of an idea what you actually want to say.
Maybe the problem isn't that you need a better prompt.
Maybe you need to change the way you write.
Put the laptop down.
Writing doesn't have to happen at a desk.
Try a notebook instead. A proper one. The kind you can scribble in, fold the corners of, underline things three times and fill with arrows that make absolutely no sense to anyone else.
Write with a blue pen. Then a green one. Circle a sentence in pink. Draw a terrible little flower beside an idea. Write sideways in the margin.
Or use your phone.
Open your Notes app while you're sitting in the car waiting for someone. Type a sentence while you're standing in the kitchen. Record a voice note while you're walking. Write the opening paragraph before you forget it.
The point isn't to find the perfect writing tool.
It's to stop your brain from associating creativity with one particular chair, one particular screen and one particular blinking cursor.
And perhaps, change the room too.
Have you ever had your best ideas somewhere completely inconvenient?
In the shower.
In the bath.
While driving.
Walking around the shops.
Half asleep.
Standing in the garden.
Creativity has very little respect for office hours.
Sometimes getting unstuck means getting out.
Take your notebook into the garden. Sit in a coffee shop. Write in the car. Have a bubble bath and let yourself think without the pressure of producing anything useful.
Go somewhere you don't normally write.
Look at something you don't normally look at.
Listen.
Notice.
Be bored for a little while.
Because sometimes the thing you're missing isn't another idea. It's an experience from which an idea can grow.
Before you prompt, think.
AI is an extraordinary tool.
Use it.
Ask it to help you find a better word. Challenge your first draft. Give you alternative ways to structure an argument. Help you get through the paragraph you've been wrestling with for an hour.
But there is something worth protecting before you hand your thoughts over to anything else:
Your first thought.
Your strange idea.
Your awkward sentence.
Your slightly ridiculous metaphor.
The way you would have said it before someone — or something — helped you make it sound more polished.
There is a human texture to writing that comes from allowing yourself to think badly before you think brilliantly. From writing something clumsy and then discovering what you actually meant halfway through the page.
So perhaps the goal isn't to write without AI.
Perhaps it's to think before AI.
Let the first version be yours.
Then invite the tools in.
Ask them to help you sharpen it. Ask them to make it clearer. Ask them to make it more human.
But remember that sounding human isn't only about changing the wording.
Sometimes, to write more humanly, you have to be more human first.
Go outside.
Take the bath.
Talk to someone.
Read something beautiful.
Use the colourful pens.
Write something nobody will ever see.
Notice the way the light falls across the kitchen floor.
Get muddy.
Get bored.
Get excited about something that has absolutely nothing to do with work.
Then come back and write.
Don't lose the love of it.
If you love thinking, don't let efficiency make you forget how to wander.
If you love writing, don't let the convenience of generating words make you forget the joy of finding your own.
There is something magnificent about being able to take a thought that exists only inside your head and turn it into something another person can see, feel and understand.
That is not a productivity hack.
It is a gift.
And perhaps the best way to get out of a writing rut isn't always to find a better prompt.
Sometimes, it's to put down the prompt altogether.
Pick up a pen.
Change your scenery.
Let yourself think.
Because life will inevitably be enjoyed more, noticed more closely and felt more deeply by the poets than the prompters.
Use ChatGPT. Use the tools. Use every wonderful thing available to you.
Just don't lose your love for the magnificent, messy, deeply human act of thinking for yourself — and writing for someone else.