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How To Start Writing? You Just Write.

Writer's picture: Jennifer PeasleeJennifer Peaslee

Last week, I wrote about my recent writing-related anxieties and the need to push past them.


This week, I'd like to share the solution.


 

It's writing! Writing is the solution! Writing is always the solution.


Once I sat down and forced myself to revise a document that I should have revised a week prior, the anxiety dissipated. Not immediately—I spent the first thirty minutes feeling like I was sitting in an ice bath. The first few changes I made to the story felt insipid and stilted.


But the feeling left as I continued to push past it and write. And that got me thinking.


 

Every so often on one of the writing-related subreddits I frequent, I will see a novice asking why they can't seem to start writing.


They've done the research! They've done the planning! They've got intricate worldbuilding! But they haven't written a paragraph of the actual book, much less a chapter. They don't know where to start. They don't know how to push past the self-doubt.


It's simple. You just write.


I can fix a bad page. I can’t fix a blank one. - Nora Roberts

I have said this before and I will say it again: writing something bad is better than not writing at all.


You can revise poor writing. You cannot revise what you have not written down.


 

I know that new writers tend to take writing advice literally, so I want to clarify...


  • "Just write" does not mean don't read.

  • "Just write" does not mean don't plan.

  • "Just write" means that you need to write, actually write your story, whether or not you feel ready.

So go write!

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