Many writers find themselves staring at a blank piece of paper (sometimes for hours) while they try to write an essay. Somehow, they believe that staring blankly at a piece of paper works. Obviously, that doesn't work, especially when the topic is an obscure or unfamiliar one. The writer has come face to face with the first problem - lack of ideas.

Proper planning.

The writer experiences a lack of ideas mainly due to lack of proper planning. Planning doesn't have to take up a lot of time. What happens is that when a writer focuses on the planning process, ideas can be generated more easily. At this stage, the writer doesn't have to worry about grammar, sentence structure, or how the essay develops. He can solely focus his attention on coming up with more ideas.

Once a writer feels that he has enough ideas, he may then proceed to pick his ideas and organize them in a way that would make the essay easy to read and understand. By then, half the battle is won.

Give yourself more time.

Sometimes, ideas don't come because writers pressure themselves too much. It is very difficult to come up with anything creative when the mind is in a stressful state.

While it is very difficult to ignore the element of time, especially when a writer has to finish an essay within a stipulated time frame, it is still necessary to relax the mind. A writer can do so by giving himself more time.

As the mind relaxes, ideas come more easily. If time is a concern, just choose one or two ideas and work with those ideas first. If there is still time, the writer can always pick a few more ideas to work on. If not, at least the essay contains some content.

When this approach is adopted, the writer finds that he can think more clearly, and the writing will flow more easily.

Spend more time expanding on the better ideas.

Out of a handful of ideas, there will be some that stand out. Identify these ideas and spend more time expanding on these ideas. Be clear and concise about the messages that you want to convey. Explain clearly where you are coming from, and give examples when necessary. To stress the importance of these ideas, you may want to repeat the point a few more times. But don't just repeat the same ideas just because you have nothing new to write about. Repeat only because you think these ideas are worth repeating.

Edit and proof read.

In the final phase of your essay, if there is still time, remember to edit and proof read your essay. Rewrite sentences that don't sound natural if you have to, and look out for spelling and grammatical errors.

If you heed the advice offered above, you are on your way to writing a high quality essay.