Getting Started

There's an itch in the back of your mind that you can't quite get at. The idea that's supplanted itself within you and won't let you rest. It could be a droplet or a raging flood; whatever the case, they all begin the same way -a fragment of an idea.

You want to get that idea onto paper, but you don't know where to start. For years you've promised yourself you would write that novel, or the memoir, or this short story, and the years have marched on in typical fashion. The sun's angle in the sky deepens as the cool, crisp autumn air seeps through the drafty windows and then those breezes turn to icy winds. Another season slips by and the birds welcome spring and the grass brightens. This is the inevitable nature of "I want to."

In writing, there is no, 'I want to.' There can be no option other than actual doing. Ideas, believe it or not, are cheap and easy to come by. They float around on thin strands, drifting along with the winds, those winds that move the seasons.

A lot of writers, and even more would-be writers, profess to struggle with getting down and dirty to work. Each one of us has our own unique reason for this; we have our individual identities and these excuses are like fingerprints. I've heard (and had) nearly every excuse to avoid the laborious act of writing -I'm tired; it's too late; I keep getting stuck; I doubt whether I'm any good; I don't know how ... and so on.

There is only one bit of advice that any writer can give another - write. No one's going to hold your hand or move your fingers for you. There's no success or failure in writing. The only failure is in not doing anything at all. 

Write. 

Sit down and write. If you have an idea, let it flow. If not, write about something you saw today, or something you did. Don't worry about how it sounds, don't worry about the language or the grammar or the syntax. The rest of that comes later. You are a writer, so write. 

I think I'll go write now.

-G