New Year, New Writing Project
How to dive into a new piece of writing in the new year.
“The hardest part is just getting started,” so many say. I don’t find that to be the case at all with writing, though.
There’s nothing more fun to me than starting a new writing project. Beginnings brim with potential, just like the fresh start of a new year. Sure, it starts getting a little scary when you realize all the things could go wrong down the road. But at the beginning, nothing has gone wrong yet.
Deciding where, exactly, to begin can be another story entirely. Many writers shoot themselves in the foot trying to find the exact right place to open a piece of writing. In my experience, though, it often takes not one, but several drafts to better understand the shape of a story, including its proper beginning.
Whether you’re writing fiction, nonfiction, poems, plays, comics, or anything else, here are some tips for diving into a new writing project.
Start with a checklist.
I get overwhelmed by the number of places I could begin. Sometimes my ideas come faster than I can write through, or even think through.
Whenever my brain swirls up a tornado of possibility, it helps to pause and collect all those ideas in the form of a checklist. Once I’ve made a list of everything I know I want to explore in a piece of writing, it becomes much clearer which of the ideas on the list are singing with the most potential, and those become natural entry points for me.
Begin with a goal in mind.
We’re all thinking about goals at the beginning of the new year. But instead of forming goals for your writing life and leaving it at that (goals like “finish that draft” or “write for an hour a day”), I suggest forming goals within your writing as well. Why do you want to write what you’re writing?
Lynn Skapyak Harlin, a writing teacher of mine, once told me, “When the goal is clear, the means appear.” With this in mind, it’s helpful to get in touch with your goal right from the get-go. A great opening hook provides the protagonist or speaker’s goal, so why not start there?
Don’t put pressure on yourself to get it right the first time.
I know how hard it is to let go of the unrealistic expectation that you’ll get a piece of writing exactly right on the very first try, especially when Microsoft Word makes everything look so damn polished.
Alexander Chee recently wrote about how computers have never exactly helped overcome this feeling. The computer screen gave him “the paradoxical feeling of ‘writing’ a book onto a surface that already looked like a book, but could also be revised forever,” which stunted him. To combat this pressure, beginning a writing project in a notebook rather than on a screen can be a huge relief.
Remember that your opening can (and probably will) change.
Many of us have a tendency to write our way into a story in order to get the ball rolling. But in a project’s early stages, the true opening can be buried beneath all that early writing.
Keep it in the back of your mind that your real entry point may come later in your writing process, and don’t let that prevent you from eating the elephant one bite at a time. These early exploratory stages should be a time to explore. Or, in the words of Ms. Frizzle, a time to “take chances, make mistakes, and get messy!”
How do you dive into a new writing project?
“Contemplate the idea for a bit until I feel properly warmed up, then jump in headfirst and try to get as much written as possible before the water turns cold.” —Julia
“I usually spend many days thinking a lot about it and jotting down occasional notes. I'm thinking of stories I want to highlight, where to start, and how to structure the project.” —Lyle
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Really Digging This
Here’s what I’ve been reading and loving lately.
I am 100% obsessed with Curtis Sittenfeld’s latest novel, Rodham. The book asks a big, compelling question—what if Hillary hadn’t married Bill? If you’re a politics nerd, you’ll love this novel.
If you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while, you know how much I gushed over Beth O’Leary’s novel The Switch. Over the holidays, I finally read O’Leary’s first novel, The Flatshare, and oh my goodness, it is one of the sweetest meet-cutes of all time. Amid this delightful romance, O’Leary also carefully and gracefully covers the topic of emotional abuse. I had the best time listening to the audiobook while wrapping gifts.
Tell me about your lonely victories.
“I got my first *physical* advance review copy from a publisher. I'm happy to review books from digital copies, but it's so much more exciting and validating to get one in the mail.” —Becca
Tell me about your lonely victories in your writing process by filling out my reader questionnaire!
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“Writing alone can give you a very deep sense of satisfaction and lonely victory.” —Greta Gerwig