by Patrick Malone
Just write.
One of the cardinal rules of being a writer is one of the simplest ones. Just write; even if you have nothing in your head at all, it important to keep the juices flowing. Even if it's just stream of consciousness rambling, you always surprise yourself how many ideas come from just beginning to put anything down on paper. To overcome what someone called the tyrrany of the blank page.
For instance most of my editorials here have been written right up against the deadline. This one I'm writing on Tuesday, the day before we're set to go online with issue number six. I didn't have a thought in my head where I was going to go with this when I started, but once you get going it's difficult to keep up with the words.
Just write. You can always do the editing later. Make it longer, shorter, tighten up the sentence structure, whatever you have to do. But get the words down. I can't begin to tell you how many times I've thought of some staggeringly good idea that I promised myself I'd get down later only to have it vanish like the fog around the mountains once I finally got around to writing it down.
I liken it rather to getting out on the open road. I posted about driving through the mountains a week ago and writing is a lot like that. You take the unexplored roads. You never know what's around the next corner. But the important thing is to get in the car and drive.
Most beginning writers ask what is probably the worst question you can ask of writers: 'Where do you get your ideas?' For most of us, ideas don't just come, but have to be searched out, mined like diamonds and brought to the surface. But you have to get into the hole and dig.
Just write. Don't worry about where you're starting or where you might end up. One draws a circle starting anywhere.