What's the toughest bit of writing for you? 

Maybe you find planning really difficult, or you struggle with editing. If you're a novelist, you might find all your dialogue falls flat, or your descriptions are boring.

But whatever you write, there's one thing that almost all writers find really tough: starting something new.

I know that whenever I sit down to work on a brand new short story, or to begin a new novel, I feel very hesitant. Sometimes, this "starting" struggle hits me earlier on in the process -- maybe I want to write a blog post, but I don't have any ideas, or I've got a vague theme for a short story, but I don't know how to get going with the plan.

If you're struggling to get started with a writing project, you're absolutely not alone. This is often the point at which resistance is at its highest, and you might find yourself putting off beginning for days, weeks, even months. I had the core idea for my novel Lycopolis about three years before I set pen to paper and started drafting!

Sometimes, waiting for the right moment makes sense: if you're in the middle of moving house, or if you're about to have a baby, it's probably not the ideal time to launch a new blog or begin a new novel.

If you've been waiting ... and waiting ... and waiting, though, it's time to get going.

It'll probably be something very small -- but it should take you forward. Maybe you need to decide on names for your characters (this often holds me up!) Maybe you have lots of notes and ideas and you now need to open up a new document and write "Chapter 1" at the top.

If you're doing something technical, like starting a blog, you might feel daunted by all there is to learn. There'll always be a first step, though. Maybe you need to sign up for an account with WordPress.com (or your blogging service of choice), for instance. Or maybe you need to write down 10 ideas that you can choose from for your first few posts.

Of course, you don't have to begin at the beginning.

Maybe you're writing a non-fiction book, and it seems to make sense to start with the introduction ... but you just don't know what to write. Start with Chapter 1 (or start with Chapter 10 if you want!) -- you can come back and write the introduction at the end, once you actually have a book to introduce!

There's never one "right" place or moment to begin. 

What matters is that you make a start. It might well be a fumbling, imperfect start (that's how it always is for me!) ... but once you've begun, you can keep going. And eventually, you'll have completed a short story, or a blog post, or even a whole book.