Whether you want to promote a business or a cause, write the great American novel or simply sum up a lifetime for your friends and family, you don’t have to miss out any longer.

Start with a brain dump, also known by my clients as The Big Sloppy Letter to Linden. Write as fast as you can. Don’t worry about spelling, grammar, how it sounds, if you’ve said it before or the order. Don’t worry about anything but getting everything inside that brain of yours on paper. There will be plenty of time for refining. There will be plenty of time to bring a critical eye to the project. But for now, let ‘er rip.

When you’re ready to start organizing your thoughts, you might try my Cut and Pile method. Print out (one-sided) what you’ve written. Read through the pages with scissors or a ruler at hand, and cut up your pages thought by thought and topic by topic. Some of the sections may run on for pages. Others may just be a paragraph or a sentence that’s buried in a paragraph where it doesn’t belong. No matter. Just plunk each into the appropriate pile of like-minded material.

Once you’ve cut everything up and are surrounded by piles, figure out a logical order for your piles. Eventually, you’ll do the same with the material in each pile.

And voila! You’ll have the better part of a rough draft. Yes, you’ll still have plenty of writing, editing and polishing to do, but it all gets easier from there.