Caveat for all the writers who really want to write someday, but who believe can’t write unless they feel inspired: you may not want to read this post.

(If you’re still reading, don’t say I didn’t warn you.)

Working on this book for thirteen days straight has reminded me of a truth I’d forgotten: a proven* way to become inspired to write is to start writing, and then keep writing.

You read that correctly. Instead of waiting for the inspiration before you start writing, take whatever weird little nugget of a thought you have, and start writing about that. If the weird little nugget is, “I forgot to buy mustard,” start writing about a person who goes to the supermarket or the corner bodega or the general store or the gourmet shop or Costco—in other words, anywhere you can go to purchase mustard—and follow them around the store to find out why they forgot the mustard. Did they leave the list at home? If so, why? Were they distracted when they were getting ready to leave the house and they left the list on the kitchen counter? Or are they accustomed to chatting on the phone with their spouse or significant other or parent while shopping and that person tells them what to get, only this time, that person is unavailable for a specific reason—out of town, had a fight, died, just separated, is working and can’t be disturbed, is trying to get the baby to sleep, is running a marathon—so the shopper is on their own. Or maybe there’s some hostility attached to the mustard, such as how they only need it because Rachel is bringing her new boyfriend Kyle when the group goes on a beach picnic and the shopper is in charge of the sandwiches, and nobody likes Kyle because he’s so judgy, and he claims he can only eat this certain brand of mustard, so the shopper subconsciously doesn’t want to buy it, especially since with any luck, Rachel will dump him before the next picnic and nobody else likes that brand.

All those possibilities out of something as mundane as “I forgot to buy mustard.”