The terror of the blank page

It's that time of year when I have to get writing lectures on books I've either never read, or haven't read for a long time. I also have to get on with doing some research, which is how I'll get a better job elsewhere.

Unfortunately, my mind freezes at the sight of the blank page - something with which students may be familiar when starting essays.

We aren't alone: this is a quotation from Swann's Way, volume one of his massive Remembrance of Things Past:

And these dreams reminded me that, since I wished, some day, to become a writer, it was high time to decide what sort of books I was going to write. But as soon as I asked myself the question, and tried to discover some subjects to which I could impart a philosophical significance of infinite value, my mind would stop like a clock, I would see before me vacuity, nothing, would feel either that I was wholly devoid of talent, or that, perhaps, a malady of the brain was hindering its development.