Dear writers who have writing to do,
Here are 20 easy steps towards getting started:
1. Get yourself some writing juice. Perhaps a cup of tea.
2. In order to write, you must know what you think. Read the paper.
3. Contemplate the nine letter word. You're a writer. Should take no time at all - and it's good for you!
4. I know, right? Me neither.
5. Refocus. Perhaps a cup of tea.
6. While the kettle boils, do one of your other tasks so as to save time. Unpack the dishwasher.
7. At this point, most good writers will become unnecessarily obsessed with cleaning the front of the dishwasher until they have broken out into a fine sweat and are squatting on the floor surrounded by outcrops of cleaning equipment, soaps, and, mysteriously, a spork.
8. Spork is a good word. Note that down.
9. Now. That tea we had on the boil. What of that?
10. Better check for inspiring news items. Hang on, who's in Paris with Jennifer Aniston?
11. What is that noise? Investigate.
12. Return from laundry having completed new load of washing, batch of ironing, and levelling of dryer so as to avoid any more annoying thumping sounds in Pristine Writing Environment.
13. Seriously though, you have to have your finger on the pulse. Check facebook.
14. Perhaps a coffee.
15. Girl in coffee shop = new best friend. Important to gain new and interesting perspectives on life for purposes of writing things completely unrelated to coffee girls, Jennifer Aniston, or Facebook statuses.
16. Investigate whether statuses has a more elegant plural. Discover, dismayingly, that statuses is in fact correct, rather than the much more obvious and literary stati. Consider working this idea into something. Consider what that something might be. Have another cup of tea.
17. Clean entire house. There. That feels better. Now we have a good working environment in which to write... what exactly?
18. Now... only when it is several hours before your deadline, mind racing, talking aloud to yourself, skipping meals and refusing to answer the telephone: start writing.
19. Feels good doesn't it. AND you have a clean dishwasher.
20. Adopt attitude of superiority and pride in reaching deadline with seconds to spare. Celebrate like giggling schoolgirl. Repeat.