It’s an inescapable law of the universe that if you want to read something, someone must have written it previously. Just as immutable, is the sometimes painful truth that if you want to have written something, you have to put pen to paper, fingers to keyboard, voice to voicemail, lipstick to mirror, marker to small child, first. Even if your receiving medium doesn’t have a pulse, getting the words started can be terrifying, no matter how brave we may normally be.

What will I write about? What’s my opening line? Am I digging at an itch? Do I want her to laugh? I don’t know what I’m going to write about I’m never going to write anything because I suck and a story about a gargoyle afraid of heights is stupid and I should go and mop the garage and why is this page so EMPTY?!!??!

It happens. I haven’t met anyone who writes who doesn’t experience the above paragraph in some way, way more than once, with associated procrastination, wailing and/or dramatic drooping. While dramatic drooping can be entertaining, it can also be painful, so here’s what I suggest instead – just decide to spend 5 minutes writing something. It could be anything at all (I’m not going to suggest what it could be!), if it’s got words in it then it counts. Just 5 minutes, 3 minutes, or even 30 seconds. Just a moment in time where you remember that you can write.

To help, I’ve compiled some pictures and ideas from “writing prompts” for your musing and entertainment…*

What I’ve always wanted to find under my bed is…

What sort of chair are you?

5 People Not to Invite To Dinner

Worst. Superpower. Ever.

If panic, nerves, perfectionism or self-doubt is numbing your fingers and brain and you can’t start, I was reading Cloudwish a few months ago, and Vân Uoc Phan (whose name means Cloudwish), the main character, learns an amazing exercise for people about to write something from her high school English teacher.  To paraphrase, it’s the control-a-delete move. For a couple of minutes (in the book I think it was 2 minutes) you just write whatever comes out of your head, no editing, just let it flood, gush, sneeze, creep or gallop onto the page. Totally free association, uncensored, careless punctuation, just get it OUT. Then, press Ctrl A Delete. POOF! All gone.  If you wrote it out, scrunch it up and, I don’t know, sit on it. Put it under your chair. (DON’T get up and walk away!) Then… keep writing.

I reread that bit of the book a couple of times, chewing on the idea. I’ve tried it a couple of times too, when I have no idea what how to structure, or have too many prickles to focus. It’s worked quite well, and has usually knocked something lose deep inside that gets me to the meat of my writing faster.

I hope that this has given you some fizz to your writing plans, and encouragement to write more. Thank you so much for reading Segullah!  As you’re aware, we have a fine group of staff who regularly post here on the blog, and who work at the Segullah journal as well.  Did you know that we are always looking for guest posts and submissions to the journal?

WE ARE!

Now, before you spool away too many reasons why you can’t write for us, you can.  We welcome submissions about anything in your life, your thoughts, what has brought you to today and what you see coming ahead. It doesn’t have to be perfect! If you’d like to think about it, have a look through some of our contributors’ previous posts to see the incredibly wide range of topics, and our submission guidelines to see just how easy it is to start the process.

Even if you chose not to submit anything right away, the offer’s always open.  Regardless, I hope you find time to write, create, imagine and dream a little.

*Click on each image for the source.

What tips do you have to start your writing process? Do you let other people read what you have written? How do you feed your muse, get inspired, find your topic?