My Favorite Ritual for Beginning a New Writing Project

The biggest problem with my writing projects is that I have too many ideas, and confusion about which one seems like the one. Sometimes I’ll even get going on something and think, “yeah this is totally it.” Only to get a few pages in to realize that, no. It totally isn’t.

I’ve never been very good at simply opening a blank document, typing Chapter One, and carrying on as though nothing significant has happened. Beginning a book feels a little like opening the door to a house I’ve never visited before. I don’t know who lives there yet. I don’t know which rooms are locked. I don’t know what I’m going to discover in the attic.

So I like to do my version of a writing ritual.

Nothing elaborate. No twenty-seven-step manifestation ritual. Mostly it involves tea, notebooks, books piled everywhere, and permission to explore whatever insane thing is bouncing aroun in my mind..

First, I make my little space beautiful.

Not my whole office. That would turn the ritual into a cleaning project, and we cannot have that.

I clear just enough room on my desk to let my brain fog dissipate. Then I make a mood board. Pinterest is my external brain.

Then I choose a few objects that belong to the story.

This is probably the most “me” part of the ritual.

I like physical clues.

An old photograph. A postcard. A dried flower. A thrifted object. A piece of jewelry. A book about the place or period I’m researching. Sometimes it’s simply an image I’ve printed because it captures the atmosphere I want.

I don’t necessarily know what any of it means yet. I think of these things as little doors into the fictional world. They give my imagination something tangible to play with before I understand the story intellectually.

Next comes the tea. Obviously.

I make whatever feels particularly comforting, light a candle, and put on music that belongs to the world I’m beginning to imagine. My favorite music are those random ambiance videos where they show a witch’s kitchen or autumnal cafe.

Then I sit with my notebook and write one question at the top of the page:

What themes are jumping out from my mood board.

Maybe I’m thinking about taxidermy rooms, abandoned resorts, neighborhood diners, missing girls, local legends, women who disappear and reinvent themselves, or a town where everyone knows something they’re not telling you.

I like the mess.

Places. Characters. Objects. Images. Secrets. Songs. Questions. Fragments of dialogue. Things I want to research. Things I simply want to put in a book because I love them.

None of it has to make sense yet.

Then I write the feeling of the book.

This may be more important to me than knowing the plot.

I ask myself:

What should it feel like to live inside this story?

Cozy? Bittersweet? Nostalgic? Romantic? Eccentric? Mysterious? Funny? Slightly unsettling?

What season is it?

What does the kitchen look like?

Where does everyone go for coffee?

What song might be playing on the radio?

What does the heroine want when nobody is watching?

These questions start turning an idea into a place.

And finally, before I close the notebook, I write a little promise to myself.

I am willing to follow this story and see where it takes me.

That is usually enough.

Then I blow out the candle, leave the notebook on my desk, and begin.

I think creative projects deserve beginnings.

We spend so much time worrying about finishing things that it’s easy to forget how tender and exciting the beginning can be—that brief period when the story is still mostly possibility.

My little ritual reminds me that I don’t need to know the entire road yet.

I only need something that fascinates me enough to take the first step.

And perhaps a good cup of tea.