Tuesday, November 12, 2013

8 Steps to Start Writing


Writers are called writers because they write.

To become a writer, one must write.

Write.

Not send tweets out about what sweater you're wearing or update your status on FB about what you added to your oatmeal that morning that made it so out of this world. Not bounce back between email and gmail in case you get a good email. Not check your phone for texts from someone fun.

Thank the heavens above I haven't signed up to do the nasty with Pinterest yet.

So, say I want to write and do the writing part about being a writer, but I just can't keep that butt of mine down in the chair.

What can I do to get those words down on the paper, so to speak??

I've come up with a list of  8 Steps to Start Writing   Hoping it helps me, maybe it'll help you too:


  1. Step one: You need to tell yourself exactly what to do and how to do it, like this: 1.) Sit down 2.) Put fingers on keys 3.) Type out what you’re saying out loud 4.) No going pee or eating food until you have a blog post done.
  2. Get some fresh air. Take a walk or go for a drive before you sit down. Stepping inside a computer to live is too much like a Twilight Zone episode. Have a life off the internet so you have something to talk about when you do try to stick your head into that little blue screen again.
  3. Keep a notebook, papers, voice recorders, pens, pencils, McDonald's napkins, anything handy so you can write down notes all day long. Then go home and tape these notes up all around your computer screen. Others may look at this post-it note fiasco and think Beautiful Mind but you know what it really says: I am a writer.
  4. Commit a writer’s mantra to memory and begin your day with it. You is Kind, You is Smart, You is Important is an awesome one. Look what it did for Emma Stone. She grew up to date Spiderman.
  5. Get some fake plastic sexy librarian glasses. Look in the mirror. Say, “Damn, I look like a writerwoman.”
  6. Sit down for two minutes and breathe in deep a few times. Nod your head like you’re a conductor ready to direct your orchestra. Look up at the screen, poise your fingers over the keys. Crack neck back and forth, now get up and go to the bathroom, have a snack, drink some soda, look out the window, pull out your phone and look at it, go to the bathroom, stalk Deb Rox's FB page, check Uppoppedafox's twitter stream, then come back and sit down for two minutes. Breathe in deep a few times. Nod your head like you're a conductor ready to...
  7.  Run to Goodwill. Buy a brown cardigan. Call it your writerwoman sweater. Wear it with your writerwoman glasses. See if the double action works.  And finally... 
  8. Sit at the keyboard and tap a key. Smile at the thought that you get to sit and zen in the world of words. Feel how much you love this shit. Scare the bejeebies out of yourself that you might forget how to write and you want to always be writing so to be  a writer, you have to write so you get down to it. Pound out fastest blog posts in history.
It’s what writers do.

* * *

21 comments:

  1. Well between my blog and a new site I found that Pays me to write I get my fill of writing lately.. I am a poetic waxer.. I love imagery and finding words to convey what it makes me feel. Sometimes that is hard to explain in the written words. Like right now I am missing my mom, immensely, like it hurts to breathe missing her and it is really difficult to type that kind of pain when the tears blur your vision.. sighs.. sorry didn't mean to ruin your funny hun...

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  2. My steps to writing are more like sit down, turn on computer, decide to do the dishes. Sit down, start to type, decide to do laundry. Sit down, get back up. Sit down, get up, get a snack. And yet, when I do manage to get out more, it feels so damn good I tell myself I have GOT to do more of this (like sex). And then I take a nap.

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  3. When I am part of a writer's process (or procrastination), I think it means I have arrived! Right?

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  4. I need to get those glasses. xo

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  5. Is napping allowed? I like mid-writing naps.

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  6. Oh, Angel... you didn't ruin a thing. I know what you mean. There is beautiful music, music is the only thing that can come close to what it feels like to have my mother gone. I know just what you mean. the frustration of not being able to capture what your heart feels.

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  7. My writerly sweaters are so cozy! Definitely brown, too, for the air of seriousness they give me.

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  8. I'm struggling with the writing process lately, or the lack of it. I have glasses. Maybe I just need the sweater.

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  9. This made me laugh (gonna get me some writer woman glasses); and it brought stinging tears to my eyes. This journey of writing, then not writing, then doing it all over again is... humbling and exciting and painful and joyful. In the end, it's such a privilege we have, to work with words and stories, isn't it? And that's what I need to remember on the days it seems my butt and the chair are repelling each other.

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  10. Totally number 6. Sit down to write, then...do anything that has nothing to do with writing.

    If you'll excuse me, now I have to go do the dishes and change out some laundry and organize my medicine cabinet.

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  11. I love any reason to hit up Goodwill! I'm on it!! This is so great! Thanks for the giggles. :-)

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  12. OH MY GOSH!!!!! Have you been watching me? How did you know I was about to fall behind on Nanowrimo?I thought of wearing my cape, but that is a walking thing...brown sweater, must get brown sweater! Must go to store, then will totally write something when I get back!!!

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  13. **Get some fake plastic sexy librarian glasses. Look in the mirror. Say, “Damn, I look like a writerwoman.**

    Superb. I have them already! x

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  14. dang. its the librarian glasses that are keeping me from being a writer...i need to get me some...smiles.

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  15. On my way to goodwill for my writer woman sweater.... Right after I check twitter.

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  16. One must act and dress to which they want to be. That's us, Marta G.

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  17. Hahaha I LOVE this! I so needed to read this today as I'm struggling with my writing and was too focused on the 'social media' aspects of it that I forgot I need to write. Thank you and I now need that sweater ;)

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  18. The glasses have been helping me. Really need to look into one of those oversized sweaters with the elbow patches. I think that would really do the trick.

    Love this, Alexandra. I must make it more of a point to give this writing thing my all :) XOXO

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  19. I have glasses AND an old brown cardigan, so my posts pretty much write themselves.

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  20. My favorite approach to writing is come up with brilliant ideas and stories in my head while I'm washing dishes/grocery shopping/driving/cleaning toilets/talking on the phone and then running to the computer when those tasks are finished and forgetting each and every detail. Oh, wait. That's not writing.

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  21. I keep thinking back to a comment you left on my blog--about how some days you feel really happy and wonder why that is...and then you remember you wrote that day. I feel the same way; writing feeds the me that lives inside all the other things I do. Yea, I can dick around and check notifications and need to go get a new sweater, but when I finally sit down and do it. HELL TO THE YEA.

    There is the part, which you so smartly note, that we do need to go out and live some real life sometimes. So we have something to write about.

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