The First Word

I conquer writers block before it even starts.  I call it "Writers get up and go".  I sit at my desk, in front of the big white sheet of MS Word and I'm confronted with the start of the writing time.
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Now what?

I start by typing the first words that come to mind,  They might have nothing to do with the story, the topic, they might be misspelled and they might be complete gibberish.

And that's all OK.

The point is to get the fingers moving, get the mind working ahead of the fingers so that you are actually writing something, anything. You can delete those first lines later, the point now is to get you going. Once you're in motion, you'll stay in motion and not stop until you're done with this session or your fingers fall off.  Don't laugh, that's happened to me.

How do you know when to turn off the gibberish?  In the back of your mind the story is running.  The characters are talking, the story is moving forward.  What we're doing by typing the first thing that comes to mind, is reestablishing the connection between your story, your conscience mind and your fingers. 

Sometimes the story just forces the issue and your fingers can't move fast enough.  Sometimes the meeting needs to be started from your fingers and work the path back to the story.

Give it a shot and let me know what you think.

-G.P.