Just Write – a Guest Post by Jennifer Dean

All writers have a point when the flame of enthusiasm gets turned down, inevitably causing the creative flow of the story to halt. I am no different once the honeymoon bliss has worn off and I need to begin drawing the story together. The problem here is if you can’t get some enthusiasm running through your blood as you write then the writing won’t happen. You’ll make an excuse to do it another day. And each day you push it aside you risk ignoring it altogether. Thus ends the fantasy of being a writer for most people.

It’s what I like to call the lazy period. So how do you get back on track and avoid that manuscript from collecting dust? Start small. Take a moment, five minutes at the least, to sit down at your computer or with a notebook. And once you’ve stared at the blinking cursor with intimidation for a few minutes you need to start typing.

What do you write? It can be words, colors, numbers, an action you did that day, or just random nonsense. It doesn’t matter. Turn that editing part of your brain off because it is not needed for a while. All you need to do is type. Type a word, type a sentence, type a paragraph. And if you prefer, do your writing on hard paper with a pen. The point isn’t how you write but that you write. Once you start you’ll be so thrilled that you’ve written anything that your enthusiasm to keep going will shoot through you. Before you know it that sentence you started will become the book you’ve written.

And the most important part is to remember why you started writing the story in the first place. Nobody is forcing you to do this. It was something you wanted to do for you. So remember to not stress and have fun with the process of getting to explore your mind’s imagination!