Getting Started Writing
Getting started writing is hard. It just is.
You may have a writing idea that you’ve had for many years, yet you don’t sit down and begin writing.
If you are like me, I can be quite creative and endlessly resourceful when it comes to reasons I can’t write today:
I haven’t thought through and written up the whole plot/organization yet, so I can’t begin
I need a powerful “hook” to start my piece—an exciting, engaging, awesome, introduction to my novel/nonfiction book—but I don’t have one
I need to have thought through all of my characters in great detail, and flesh them out in minute detail, before I can begin
If those things don’t stop me from putting fingers to keys, I will worry that my writing must be perfect right from the start (or I will just have to do it over again).
Sometimes I set dizzyingly ambitious goals that seem to discourage me rather than fire me up.
Sometimes I get as far as opening the laptop, only to stare at the blank screen and nothing—not even a sentence fragment comes to mind.
So, I’ve asked the experts for help, and here is some of what I have learned:
Do all that you can to commit to a daily writing habit. Even if your commitment is only to write for 10 minutes or for 3 paragraphs, just do that every day. It takes 30 days to develop a habit. Even if you must sit and write, “I don’t know what to write, I don’t have anything to say,” do that and do it every day. The words will come in time.
Establish a firm deadline. If that scares you, be very generous. “I will submit my manuscript to a publisher on January 1, 2024.”
Find an accountability partner. I might be OK if I don’t make my goal when it’s just me, but when someone else knows I didn’t make it? That is much harder for me. Having an accountability partner really helps me to deliver.
Set goals—whether your goals are a certain number of words or chapters, try to set weekly and monthly goals for yourself.
Join a writing group. Share your writing with other writers and get their feedback. I promise that this will help you. There are so many good writing groups that are completely online now.
Take a writing course – look around at your local community college or bookstores for courses on the genre of your choice. The structure and content of a class can help you create momentum.
Read a lot. Find the best books published in your genre and start reading. Look at how other writers use language, cadence, and sentence structure. Learn from them.
Most importantly, ask your perfectionist self to please sit over there in the corner for the next year. DO NOT let her be in charge. In the beginning, you may write some mediocre content, but you will get better. Just keep writing.
When you have completed a first draft of your work, if you haven’t already asked others to be beta readers for you, find some readers. Ask them to read your manuscript and to give you completely honest feedback. When you look at the same content week in and week out, it may be hard to see it clearly. You need other, more objective eyes, to read and comment on your writing. Every writer needs editing. It is simply a part of the process.
Once you have written, edited, revised, and revised again, start sending your manuscript to publishers. You may not instantly get that contract you desire, but you may get useful feedback that will help you to continue to refine your writing.
Don’t give up.