For Beginning Writers – How to Start?

You desire to write. You have a story to tell. How do you start? 

I’ll tell you how I started.

1. Go get a notebook and a pencil. I like a pencil because I can hear the words hitting the page. This is gratifying. 
2. Sit down in a place void of distractions. You know what this looks like for you.
3. Set a timer for thirty minutes. There’s a timer on your phone. Or ask Alexa to set one. Or use your grandmother’s old Sunbeam wind-up timer. 
4. Write. It doesn’t matter what you write. The goal is not productivity but habit. Write your grocery list, the contents of your closet, the colors in a 64-count box of Crayolas. Or write that story your uncle used to tell at every family picnic, the one about the guy who got in a car crash, was thrown from his car and landed on his feet.
5. When the timer sounds, stop. Put down your pencil.

Go about your day. You’ve written. The goal has been accomplished––to begin the habit of writing every day. Tomorrow you will do the same thing. And you will find, if you do this each day, you’ll have no shortage of things to write about. You’ll spend the time developing what you wrote the day before or starting something new. The ideas will flow. Your job is to simply show up.