Dear cj, I can’t start a story. Help! Help! HEEEEELLLLP!

            Okay, first and foremost calm down. Second, take a deep breath and count back from 5, I’m going to take you to a happy place. Remember the times that you would just start writing and it would flow on its own? Now, you can’t even finish the first paragraph. What went wrong from then to now?

                I can say that for me, I started to worry about what people thought of my writing. I became obsessed with perfection, and that everything had to be perfect. So with me now, I would like you to repeat these six words.

My story will not be perfect.

My story will not be perfect.

My story will not be perfect.

                It doesn’t hurt to strive for perfection, but when that search for perfection hinders your writing you have to nip it in the bud and just write to write. But maybe you’re not like me, maybe you don’t strive for perfection or your search for perfection doesn’t hinder your work. Maybe you’re just not mentally prepared to start your story. And here’s how you can become prepared.

                When I’m about to start a new story I cut down on distractions, last time I attempted to write a story I uninstalled all of my The Sims Expansion Packs and the game itself (university is beautiful you guys) and it worked, for about a month. Now, you don’t have to be like me and cut off your livelihood but try to block out unnecessary things. That TV blaring at a very high volume and keeping you from paying attention from your writing, turn it off. Can’t help but shake your booty at the music playing from your Ipod, keep it under control or better yet…play some Mozart.

                After all of my distractions are gone, I try to emerge myself into the world, genre, and mood of my story. How do I do this? Well, I usually start by watching a movie that is similar in theme to my story. It doesn’t have to be an Oscar winning movie, just any movie that you think is similar will do. Let’s say I’m writing a story about a superhero that’s kind of a loner, I would watch Batman to get me in that place of mind. Now this isn’t always good, sometimes you can get yourself so wrapped up in that world that your story can eventually start to sound similar to it. What you have to remember when watching a movie to spark your creative intent is that your story and that movie only share the same genre. Your story should be able to stand on its own with only those minimal comments from your reader that go something like ‘this totally reminds me of so and so’. Sometimes, I listen to music to get into the mood to write. Sometimes I write a little interview with my characters, but we’ll talk about that more in a later chapter.

                Now once I’m emerged and all my distractions are gone I’m usually ready and willing to write. Then I start to write and I freeze up. Now if you are like me and you freeze mid-sentence, you are suffering from IDIDN’TPLANENOUGH syndrome. Sometimes you are so gung-ho about a plot and you have all of these scenes in your head that you just need to get down on a piece of paper that you just all willy nilly start to write. What you don’t know is that you’re setting yourself up for some major, major writer’s block. That’s why I always say to research or a least plan a little before starting. Not everyone plans their stories, I know but most people, especially people that are serious about their work, have some kind of outline in place to guide them when they get stuck. Planning can be sometimes haphazard (read the planning chapter of How To Be An AFF Writing God to see how) but most of the time it really helps.

                Okay, I’m done telling you what to do, now go try to start your stories you numbskulls. Oh, put any questions you would like me to answer in the comments or PM me. Thanks for reading.