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Have you ever found yourself staring at your screen and praying to your fickle muse to grant you the strength to take the words out from deep within you?  If you say yes, stop it.  Yes, I said stop trying to get a hold of her, because she’s on vacation in Cabo San Lucas and the last thing on her mind is you.

So how do you get back on track?  How are you going to write that blog entry?  Finish that piece of flash fiction?  Top off the novel you’d been writing for the last six months?

Try a writing burst.

A writing burst is a session of writing where you concentrate on nothing but output.  It doesn’t matter what you write as long as you write.  If you wanted to you could focus on writing a letter to your grandmother, a blog entry, a recipe, a short story, or your comprehensive plan on taking over the world using only strawberry Twizzlers.   The point is you just have to write something.

To keep things flowing well, I recommend your writing burst be fifteen minutes long.  Fifteen minutes is a small enough piece of time where it doesn’t feel like a major commitment, but isn’t small enough were you’ll be out of time before you even started.  It also helps you silence your inner editor long enough for you to sit down and produce.  Once your fifteen minutes are over, you’ll be surprised at what you’ve accomplished.

For example, I finished this entire blog entry in fifteen minutes.

If you’d like to try a writing burst, call or message a couple of your friends who also have writing to do and do an impromptu writing burst.  Have no writing friends?  Join me on Plurk and we’ll go ahead and do a writing burst together.  You’ll be happy you did, and your muse will be even happier you’ve left her alone with her tall Piña Colada sunning at the edge of the pool.