Cindy Brady Syndrome

Cindy Brady Syndrome, you know the feeling, even if you don’t know the name. You open up your laptop, find a comfy spot to sit, and open up a new WordPress post. You have a witty title or maybe you have an outline sketched out in your head. You know what you want to write…but…nothing.

It’s just a blank page.

Minutes seem like hours as you fidget in your seat. You’re determined to write this blog post, but the ideas seem to have all disappeared. Even simple words aren’t coming to you.

This is a total disaster.

The Effects of Cindy Brady Syndrome

That frozen feeling you get? That’s called Cindy Brady Syndrome (or pulling a Cindy Brady). Or at least that’s what me and my friends always called it.

I hope I’m not dating myself here, but if you remember the “You Can’t Win Them All” episode of The Brady Bunch, you know what I’m talking about.

(In all fairness, I wasn’t even one year old when it first aired in 1973, but thanks to a world before cable and streaming, I grew up watching it in syndication.)

If you’ve never seen The Brady Bunch, you’re in for a treat. You can catch up with the complete collection of The Brady Bunch if you’re looking for some 70s camp. (Yep, that’s one of those affiliate links – when you click it and make a purchase, I make a small commission from it.)

The basics of the plot? Cindy signs up for a quiz show, starts being a total jerk about it, and then on the day of the show, the red “on air” light kicks on and Cindy finds herself completely and utterly frozen.

It’s kind of like stage fright, but in her case, it was TV fright. It happens to a lot of people when you turn a video camera on them.

I’ll tell you when it happens to me the most…when people take photos of me. I don’t know what to do and I feel like I’m supposed to freeze frame so that I don’t mess up the picture.

Cindy just stared at the camera with a blank expression and if I remember correctly, they played some spacey sound effect or music to go with it. (I might be hearing that in my head.)

The Cindy Brady Syndrome on Your Blog

So there you are with the blank page in front of you (that’s a lot of white space that needs some words to fill it out). Your genius ideas are reduced to a dull buzz in your ears and a sudden need to go to the bathroom.

How do you beat it?

When I talk to real estate agents about blogging or filming videos, I always tell them the same thing.

“If I were to ask you a question about your topic, what would you say to me?”

Few agents find themselves struggling to speak. They can talk about a million things for hours.

So ask the question in your head and instead of speaking the answer, type it.

Just. Start. Typing.

It will probably be a bit rough around the edges – quite often our fingers don’t keep up with our brains (just dig through this website and you’ll probably find plenty of examples).

That’s ok.

You can edit anything when writing – that’s one of the great things about it. If you were speaking, you’d be tied to those words for ever, because you can’t go back and change what you said. Someone heard you say it.

Just type each word in your head as if you were talking to yourself. Sometimes, when I’m typing, I even catch myself mouthing the words. No joke.

We’ll talk about it more in another post, but I’m also a big fan of stream-of-consciousness writing.

Just let the words happen. Stop thinking about them. Clear your mind and type whatever shows up. Sometimes it’s way more brilliant than what your more logical, methodical mind will come up with.

So next time you’re feeling a little Cindy Brady, take a step back, take a breath, and ask yourself the question you need to answer in your post.

Then let your fingers do the talking.