It’s a cool, rainy day here in Colorado, the kind that the Irish and Scottish would call “soft.” And it’s my writing day–well, writing morning, actually. So I snuggled down into bed, pulled the covers up under my chin, closed my eyes and went to work.

Yup. I worked. As I lay there, all warm and cozy, I went over what I was going to write, the topics, the transitions, the general concepts. (They refine themselves when I sit down at the computer.) I thought about how things were going to fit together. I reminded myself “Don’t get it good; just get it down. Writing is really rewriting,”  so I wouldn’t get caught up in perfectionism. About 45 minutes later, I got up, with a clear picture in my mind of what I was going to write.

I have a writing outfit–a T-shirt from the Napa Valley Writers Unlimited that says “Will Write for Wine and pink bunny slippers–that I wear onlywhen writing, and I put that on. I made a pot of my special “writing” coffee, and ate a quick breakfast while re-reading what I’d previously written. And then I settled down to write.

And because of those 45 minutes of prep; because of the ritual I have (the outfit, the coffee, the routine), I was able to get right to work. Everything flowed easily. I cranked out 12 single-spaced pages in about 3 hours. And called it a day–for writing anyway .

For me, the keys to writing successfully are:

• Know what you want to say before you sit down to say it (sounds like common sense, but a lot of people expect it to come after they sit down to write. That’s when you get blank-screen freeze-up.)
• Don’t get it good, just get it down. Expect to rewrite. Plan to rewrite.
• Set aside a good chunk of time on a regular basis (I write Mondays first thing in the morning, Wednesdays right after yoga, and every other Thursday morning), and hold that time sacred. Block it out for writing. Don’t schedule anything else. Make sure this time is your best creative, high energy time. Do
• Have a ritual or routine that you use, every single time, to tell yourself that this is your writing time. This gets your creative juices flowing before you hit the computer.
• If possible, write in a different place from where you do your other work. Laptops are great for this.
• Turn off all distractions–e-mail especially.
• Don’t do anything except write during your writing time.

I’d think this pretty much applies to any kind of creative endeavor: music, painting, cooking, whatever. So if you’re stuck or blocked or can’t seem to get going, you might give this a try.