Step One: Decide you’re going to write a story.
Step Two: Decide it’s going to be brilliant. Imagine the
response of your [teacher, classmates, reading group, agent] and how it will
completely change the way they look at you.
Step Three: Open up Microsoft Word.
Step Four: Stare at the blank white screen stretching on
into infinity until your eyes begin to burn and your brain hurts from the sheer
emptiness of it all.
Step Five: Check your e-mail. If writing a novel, research
agents for a couple of hours.
Step Six: Stare at the blank Word document again.
Step Seven: Realize you need music. Spend the next hour
finding the perfect “mood” music for what you want to write.
Step Eight: Inspired by [insert perfect music here], click
back over to Word document.
Step Nine: Change Facebook status to: [Your name here] is
WRITING!!! Realize you aren’t on Twitter, and that anyone who is anyone is
networking/wasting time on Twitter. Sign up for an account and spend the next
two hours figuring out how it works and what the crap # means.
Step Ten: Stare at blank Word document. Decide you need a
title. Brainstorm for the next hour.
Step Eleven: Come up with a GENIUS title. Proudly type “The
Scent of Green Papayas” at the top of the document, followed by your name.
Happily consider how easily a story will come now that you have such an
amazing, literary title.
Step Twelve: Take a four-hour break for snacks and naptime.
Step Thirteen: Refreshed, sit down and toy around with pen
names for a while.
Step Fourteen: Realize to your horror that your genius title
is actually the name of a Vietnamese foreign film you saw seven years ago.
Step Fifteen: Erase the title, pressing Backspace much
harder than necessary.
Step Sixteen: Stare at the blank Word document until your
eyes bleed.
Step Seventeen: Check Facebook. See that fourteen people
have commented on your status, asking what you are writing. Feel both guilty
and annoyed.
Step Eighteen: Slam your laptop shut and go to the movies.
Tomorrow’s a better day for writing, anyhow.
See? You never knew writing was so easy!
( Sadly i cannot take credit for this. But none the less i wanted to share it with you all. Its far to true...)
