It is the first Tuesday of a brand new month, and time for another writing tip. I get a lot of
comments from people who say they want to write, “but they just can’t get started,” they go on to ask
“How do you get started?”
During my time in this business and having penned a few things, I have found that if you want to
write something, sit down and write. Is the best approach. There is no magic to it, the work only gets done
when you do it. The old adage that you can not edit a blank page is true, as is the converse. When you get
something down on paper you can improve it, right away, in a day, in a week when ever you want but the
key is having something on the paper to work with.
“What if I don’t get it right?” If you wrote it to the best of your ability, it is right. Remember you
are writing to recall what you saw, and it may have been the same incident but someone else might have
seen it a little differently and that is fine. One of the joys of reading is to learn someone else point of
view.
I have also found that a prompt helps me get started. I have a question that I ask my self and it
gets me started, it is almost taunting me to get writing. Sorry I can not share that question with you here
because then it would not be uniquely mine, and I feel that is important. So you will have to think of your
own question or prompt, and that might take a few attempts but believe me it works.
If you want to get something written, sit down and start writing, it may not be perfect and you
might have to come back and improve it a bit but that is a lot more than you have on the paper right now.
Isn’t it?
There are all kinds of aids to help in making writing a part of you life, like doing it at the same
time every day, or at the same place and all those things work but today we are talking about starting for
the first time.
It does not have to be and most likely won’t be a best selling novel but those are the ideas that
hold us back. Realize it is a start and you have to start some place, and sometime. This is a good a time as
any, and where ever you are is a good place. Put the words on the paper, never mind all those things about
plot and what ever else. Just start writing and you will be surprised at what you come up with. I know
most days I surprise myself and a few days I even surprise my editor.