As I sit here and stare at my computer screen, I am faced with what I believe to be the hardest part of writing, simply starting. Often when I write I know what topic I am supposed to or want to write on. The difficulty comes in narrowing that general topic down into specific enough terms to write. Take this example: I want to write about dogs. There is my topic, but I cannot physically write all there is to know about dogs. Maybe I want to focus on a certain breed of dog, my personal preferences in dogs, or a past experience that I associate with dogs or that directly involved one. What works for me is to simply dumping all possible writing subjects onto the paper. Usually by doing this, something in my mind will click, and I will get an idea to write on. If after all that you are still drawing a blank, well, that sucks, I don't have anything else that could help you.
At this point you have probably still not started writing the actual piece. And even though you have narrowed down your topic it is still hard to put the first words on the page. I have no advice for this but to force yourself to write something. As long as it is related to your topic it's good. Once you have a few sentences, or maybe even a few words, more will to come to you. The foreboding of the blank page will leave you and the rest is just putting your ideas down.
The rest is fairly simple, or it sounds very simple. The rest is revision. Writing in any stage can be revised more, added to, subtracted from, or condensed. Give your writing to others, have them read it, comment on it and give you suggestions. This step can go on for however long or short a time that you want. With some finishing touches you can call it complete, even though writing is never truly complete, you can say that you're done.
I am lacking in a witty way to end this post so, have fun writing!
MJ
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