Not sure if you mean fiction or non-fiction. For non-fiction (at least): 1. Write - a first draft, of an essay, chapter, article, anything. Don't judge for qu

Not sure if you mean fiction or non-fiction. For non-fiction (at least): 1. Write - a first draft, of an essay, chapter, article, anything. Don't judge for quality. A first draft is supposed to be bad.[0] Just write the stuff down. The main thing is to have raw material for: 2. Editing. Edit, re-edit, reorganize, etc. Maybe dozens of times or more, until there's not a word that can be improved or cut, until every cliché is gone. Edit more. Maybe the pieces will merge, or split apart - let the writing happen, go where it wants to go, not where you want it to go. p.s. Zinsser's On Writing Well, on writing non-fiction, is wonderful, as is pg's essay about writing essays. http://www.paulgraham.com/essay.html http://www.paulgraham.com/essay.html also: http://www.paulgraham.com/talk.html http://www.paulgraham.com/talk.html [0] Like it says in Clean Code, first you write dirty code, then you clean it. Nobody can write clean code; it's a product of editing.