You take a walk down the street, enjoying the feel of the cool evening air. As you walk you are hit by a sudden stroke of genius; an inspiration that leaves you with an overwhelming feeling to document your thoughts.

You lie awake at night recalling some of your experiences in life and the lessons you learnt. Again, you feel the need to share; you know you have to write…

You are at an event or on a trip. It’s colourful, fun, unforgettable. You think to yourself, “why don’t I just scribble something so people would know what it feels like doing something like this or going somewhere like this”…

We could go on.

Having the inspiration to write and actually getting into the grunt work of writing are as far as the north pole is from the south. There is almost usually this gap between that inspiration to write and the actual writing.

Writing requires a whole lot of thinking; and thinking requires a whole lot of work. How to put to writing what you have thought of in your head is not as easy as it sounds. However, below are a few tips to help you get that writing done:

1. Avoid procrastinating or you won’t ever start. Don’t wait till you are in the mood to write because you may never be. Jane Austen says: “I am not at all in a humour for writing; I must write on till I am.

2. Have a notepad where you put down those thoughts in your head; they don’t have to be perfectly written, it’s just you putting them down immediately they come so you don’t miss out on any of those “Eureka!” moments. You may decide to go see a movie or something and come back to them later. The beautiful thing about this part of writing is that as you jot down, new ideas that would connect the dots might just come your way.

3. You don’t have to start at the beginning, if you don’t want to. You could start from the most interesting part. You could start from the easiest part, if the most interesting isn’t; this way you settle in with ease. You could also decide to do the dirty jobs first! That way, again, it can only get easier along the way.

4. After you are done with (3) above, you can now do a draft of how you want your work to appear and then the second draft. Review your work and then give it out to a trusted hand for review.

These are four sure proof ways of getting that writing done. Do you have any other tips or tricks up your sleeve you would like to share? Please, drop a comment below.