On Your Mark, Get Set, GO! (Really!)

Is this your problem? You’re ready to write, a cup of steaming coffee beside your desk, your computer booted up, the office unusually quiet; best yet, you know exactly what to say, only . . . you just . . . can’t . . . seem . . . to get . . . started. If so, join the thousands and thousands of businesspeople who claim that opening paragraphs are like cement blocks on their writing feet.

The solution is remarkably simple. Ignore the opening and jump into the body of your message. When you finish, go back and add that delinquent first paragraph or mold the first line of your body into an eloquent opening. Perhaps, though, you approach writing as a builder approaches a house. Without that first layer of bricks, the whole thing topples. If you must have an opening paragraph, then do this: write two or three alternatives. Write quickly, too, knowing that you’re merely creating options, however strong or weak they turn out.