1) Start loose, just getting words on the page.
How is it so easy to forget the magic of that act? How lively are our minds, our imaginations! We cannot shut them up. Stop and listen for a bit. (Try this with children, too–it works miracles against temper tantrums, transforms routine irritation into marvelous conversation.)
2) Rant, rave, regret.
Get it all out. If you can only think about the fact that there is no milk in the goddamn house, make a grocery list. If you wish your desk were organized so you could find anything at all, sketch out a plan of action in your sentences. Marry your distractions to your writing habit: conquer them by writing about them.
3) Look around.
The world is full of compelling detail. A young woman in a brilliant blue shirt, the shaved sides of her head growing in, two arcs of silver twisted together in a bracelet on her wrist sits opposite me with her chin on her hand. Copper canisters of coffee shine in a neat row along the top of a pastry case at the front of the cafe. Begin to write about what you see. This will connect you to the power of creative writing, which is in the details, in the captivating and never ordinary world.
4) Wriggle your way into your story.
Start with an image, a gesture or action, a line of dialog. Steal a few words from a newspaper or a book of poetry and move forward from there. Or go meta. Ask your character a question and type the answer. Write about the plot: What if? (Imagining possibilities, story.) If this, then this . . . (Causality, plot.)
5) When you are all warmed up–keep going.
There comes a point when it is tempting to stop, but rest assured that you are still in the hallway of the castle and that further on is a door to a room full of treasures. How do I know? Because you carry the possibility of this world in your very muscles, and it is in the act of pushing on that the room is released into being. As one of my NaNoWriMo-ing students put it: Go on, go on, go on . . .
And keep going each day, too. Start at Step One and follow each step. Set a timer or give yourself a number of words, and just do it, whether you feel like it or not, whether you have time or not. Squeeze it in; do your best. You’ll feel so much better after you do. And you’ll be a real writer, which, as Pinocchio and the Velveteen Rabbit can tell you, is the most wonderful thing in the world to be.
“A real writer is one who really writes.” — Marge Piercy
What are your best steps in your writing practice?