Creative Writing: the Next Sentence Rule

You've been working on your novel or short story. You finish for the night, and spend the next day in school or meetings or driving kids or whatever. Finally you have a moment to yourself, and you go to sit down to continue working on your piece. You open your file, put your hands on the keyboard, and nothing comes. You sit there, trying to think of the best way to continue the story, but before you can get anything down you are called away on another errand. This happens to me pretty much every time I sit down to write. Ok, not every time, but a lot. So what I've come up with to maybe help with this problem is what I call 'The Next Sentence Rule.'

Basically what the next sentence rule says is this: write down or memorize the last sentence you've written of your piece. While you're in classes, school, the car, wherever, have that sentence with you (in your head or on paper), and write the one that comes next (in your head or on paper). That way when you sit down back at your computer you will have something to get your fingers moving. You'll have something to start back up with, and a lot of times thats all you need to get cracking.

So while your driving home for the holidays, sitting around the table with your family, going to classes, work, or whatever, be thinking and be ready with your next few words for the next time you sit down to write.

Hope this helps, and happy holidays!
Sarah Allen