This happens to me all the time. What often helps is starting in the middle. Instead of staring at a blank page trying to figure out how to start, I'll dive right into the "meat" of the article or the part that I find easiest/most interesting then build around it.

Write 2000 words, then cut half. Just go ahead and write it, telling yourself that it's going to suck, it's going to be awful, it's going to be really bad and also way way too long but what the hell, it doesn't matter, you will never show it to anyone. Then chop it mercilessly and show it to someone, but make sure you don't let yourself realize that you're actually going to let anyone see it until it's done.

The best thing to do is just start writing. Not necessarily at the beginning, just start writing and you'll get it going. Starting is hard, stopping is hard too.

And, if all else fails, get really drunk on cheap red wine or whiskey, that always broke up my writer's block.

Bingo and bajingo from two of my fave bunnies: just start. It doesn't matter, it's all in the editing which is all in the rereading, etc.

Just start writing anything, even if it's so you can start striking things out.

Computers were made for rearranging text.

Another vote for starting in the middle.

Write the easiest paragraph, on the part you know the most about. Expect to not be satisfied with it. That's okay.

You'll do great!

Sorry, didn't see you, fenriq, but I don't advise the getting drunk. Maybe a drink, but if you know your facts, spit 'em out.

mygothlaundry has it. Write, cut half of what you've written and rewrite the other half.

In order to get started you could try something like this: Force yourself to write about your subject non-stop for three minutes. Set a kitchen timer or something and simply don't let your fingers leave the keyboard until it goes off. Don't self-censor. You are SUPPOSED to write crap. When the time is up read what you have written. There is bound to be at least one sentence in there you can use.

Great writing is really rewriting. Just start pounding away. You'll probably bury your lead, but that's what cut and paste is for.

I tend to draw a line at the bottom of the text and mark it "Slushpile". Everything that doesn't fit on a read-through gets cut and pasted below the line. That way it's still there, but out of the narative flow.

Write upside down so when you edit you'll think someone else wrote it and you'll be more honest.

Okay who or what is the subject? We're all going to contribute one paragraph.

Elizard - just think of it as 500 words a page - that's just two pages of writing, and you did more than that in high school.

eight, nine paragraphs, tops. You're in like Flynn.

Do the first paragraph first, that's the easiest one - just intro stuff building the topic.

The advice to write and cut is interesting to me. I can never seem to meet my word count, let alone exceed it. And once I've written the last word, I send it off without ever looking at it again. Funny how everyone's process is different.

Great idea, iconomy. Here's my submission:

The results were terrifying. Panic in the boardroom led to panic in the halls of government; society and the rule of law teetered on the precipice, and the confused citizens, with no new leaders to follow, went peacefully about their business without a care in the world.

Yeah, I wrack my brain over ledes and ultimately end up starting in the middle somewhere, only to develop a lede over time, usually in drafts.

But my writing process is typically one of two steps forward, one back to edit. As a result, I usually don't go back and change anything significant after the first draft.

I was thinking the same thing, jrossi, about how different everyone's angle is, and yet it always is, just do it.

1K is cake.
LET THE MEAT CAKE.
Ha, give us your outline and just dedicate it to metachat.
You get to edit us.
oooo

Someone editing Ethylene - good luck, man. Many have tried, many have died...

And to think I wrote Meat cake for you.
Never again.

My strategy when writing hopeless papers in college was, whenever I got stuck on something, I just paged down a bunch of lines and kept writing on whatever point I needed to hit next or whatever I had bonking around in my skull. The trick was just that when I ran out of things to say about one aspect to KEEP GOING, keep writing on one of the other aspects, and then rearrange at will.

But 1K is nothing. Tell us your subject! I'll do a paragraph for you!

Okay, here's the outline:
Intro
Educational landscape (1961)
Political landscape
Arrival of John B Macdonald
Lobbying for report (see also political sit.)
Report commissioned
Released - content (Jan 28/63)
Reactions
Change
Funding cut
Reaction
Campaign
Result
Greater result
Resignation

Can you tell I've totally overprocessed this? Thanks, bunnies. Very helpful advice, all, and keep it coming. I've got the blank page up. Here I go!

(PS my next piece will be about meat cake, just for you eth. It won't get published, but that's okay--we'll know about it)

I did come across a great quote as part of my research, though. John B quotes Henry Brougham: "Education makes a people easy to lead but difficult to drive, easy to govern, but impossible to enslave."

I hate writing. It's easy, right? Just stare at the page until blood drips from your forehead and makes marks on the paper. I start off by with a curse-laden rant about whatever bullshit topic I have to write some shit about. I try to come out of the gate hard and get several 'grafs down, and fire off as much as I frickin' can while I'm still pissed. I usually imagine I'm waxing eloquent at a fellow drunk in a bar. Talk. swear. froth. dont't "write"; transcribe your speech. I also turn off the fekakta speel checking cause I just wanna get the words out, and I don't need the distraction. If nothing else, just write down why you're so annoyed at not knowing enought about the topic to have anything to say about it.

As I get into the groove of the writing, I calm down and revise out the stuff not suitable for print. The sentences about the things you are annoyed with can usually be rewritten as the topic sentences of individual paragraphs. I don't worry about "Inverted Pyramid" structural stuff until I am at the revise/edit stage. Intro and Outro grafs come last, because my thesis usually morphs a bit as I write.

MacDonald's details escape me; sorry, I'd need a hint of research.

"Let them eat cake."
"Let the meat cake."
sheesh.
Good thing I refrained from what I thought was the funny.
I've never been bunny enough for this place.

Good thing I let PST's scabies pass.

Ha! I've got research out the wazoo, eth, including a binder full of printouts of local newspaper articles from the period. Wanna come check it out? It makes stultifyingly dull reading, unless you're connected to the institution in question. Which is why I find it fascinating.

It already sounds like fleshing out your outline would make 1K easy.
Start out dry, or is that the problem?
Why are you writing here?
Jeezy, Weezy, pound it out!
If you need color or lyricism, get out those base facts in the next two hours and you have handfuls of folks upthread happy to flesh up your bones.

You even got Sphinx in the animal thread. I was gonna bid on sphinx for a bit back there.

You like Three Word Game, right? Just think of this as One Thousand Word Game. Easy!

Woo! 345 and counting! Y'all are right--the hard part will be keeping it short enough.

Thanks, bunnies. You guys are the bestest.

Probably too late, but as a stuck writer myself, I found this thread enormously helpful.

I often start with a song lyric and work from there. You can always edit it out later.

Sounds like you're on your way. I used to (in college) be able to churn out a paper fully-formed from my head in about 1.5 drafts, starting with the first sentence. This didn't help my tendency to procrastinate, but it usually worked.

From working on Wikipedia, I've developed a more random approach -- just start writing down "bullet" items that you know should be in the article, bounce up and down as needed, rearrange them so they're topically close, and eventually you'll see a paragraph that needs to be written to pull a few of these together.