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[Tacitrain]

Are there any tricks to getting started with writing?  I feel completely ridiculous staring at a blank page, and even more so when I actually start to type something.  Has anyone else here felt like that?

[Elsebeth Rhiannon]

Often.

No way around it but just starting. I often tell myself that "I can delete this later". Seem to help.

[Vieve]

When I'm stuck for where to begin,  I try to imagine myself as being in a room (or a field, spaceship, whathaveyou) listening to people talking.  I start off by transcribing their conversation.  By the time I've figured out why they're having the conversation, what they haven't said (won't say) in the conversation, and what happens after they leave it/what happened before they got there, there might be the beginnings of a story on the page.

[Silver Night]

Often.

No way around it but just starting. I often tell myself that "I can delete this later". Seem to help.

Yeah. You just have to start writing, even if you just write 'I can't think of what to write' to begin with. You can always edit to your heart's content later. I've ended up with stuff I was quite happy with, having started out with truly terrible raw material.

The important thing is to get some words down on the page.

[Casiella]

I literally type gibberish sometimes. Just the act of putting random words down... and then it gets going.

[Ken]

I usually don't attempt to write fiction from a cold start.  Inspiration often hits me really hard right in the face, but never when I'm just sitting at the computer with an empty page in front of me.  So I have a notebook and take lots of notes and scribble down random ideas when something strikes.  Inspiration doesn't deliver novels, after all, just sentences or concepts.  So my suggestion to helping overcome the daunting white glare of "wall-of-no-text" is to plan ahead.  Keep a little notebook with you and capture any creative idea that wanders into your brain, even if doesn't seem that profound in the moment.  Later on it may be turn out to be an important piece in a bigger and more sublime puzzle.

Also, try to start writing from the middle of your story.  Hell, you might even want to write the epilogue first.  (Last night I had a big idea slap me in the brain in the form of what will be the very last page of what I hope will eventually become an awesome story.)  Fiction doesn't have to be written in the same order it's read.

[Z.Sinraali]

Thirding Ken and Vieve's comments regarding starting points. I often come up with snippets of dialogue, turns of phrase, and other such wordy things that I think are interesting. So I build off those. And while I'm writing I rarely stay on the same section for long.

It still takes me forever and a day to finish anything though.

[hellgremlin]

I always start with a drink.

[Casiella]

Don't you start everything with a drink?

[Jonathan Morrison]

One thing my english professor taught us to do is to setup the scene first and give it a light description...

"The field was bathed in gold from a setting sun."

Then slowly add new elements to the setting like wheat or corn stalks waving in a breeze. Then add the human or object elements into it all.

"The man casts a long shadow as he stands watching the setting sun, the breeze tickling his bared arms."

I've used that technique quite a bit and it generally works pretty well. Inspiration and random ideas and saving them on a notepad or something is also a great way to start or work to a start, etc.

[Saxon Hawke]

In my freshman art class, I was terrified of a blank canvas. I literally sat staring at it with my paint brush in hand.

"What are you doing?" my teacher asked.

"I don't know where to start. I'm afraid I'll mess it up." I replied.

The teacher looked thoughtfully at the canvas, then grabbed by hand and painted a streak across it.

"Start from there," he said and walked away.

I didn't stay with painting, but I use the same approach to writing. You have to attack the blankness and fill it with something, anything.

[Vieve]

It still takes me forever and a day to finish anything though.

What is this 'finishing' thing you speak of?

[Tacitrain]

Thanks for the advice, everyone.  Ill try to use it.

[hellgremlin]

Don't you start everything with a drink?

Got me there.