All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. Great works are often born on a street corner or in a restaurant's revolving door (Albert Camus).

Starting any project is difficult. Beginning a creative work can be even more daunting. There is so much room to doubt yourself and procrastinate: clean the house, do the shopping, cooking, walk the dog, worry about work. Many people talk about writing a novel. Few actually start one.

Before you begin writing there is research to be done; other novels in the genre or on the subject, books that you would like to capture something of in your own work, historical background, the afternoon light in Carcassonne in May, or the feel of firing a Glock.

Thinking time is often underrated. Ideas need time to develop, link and form shapes in your head. I’ve heard Sonya Hartnett describe her early ideas as clouds going up; when a few start to clump together, she knows she has enough to work with. It is much easier to start writing with an idea, scene or character in mind than to face the blank page or screen waiting for inspiration to strike. That said, you don’t want to think about a project for so long that you feel that you have already written it. Hang onto the initial excitement and enthusiasm and get it on the page.

When you finally sit down at your desk with a cup of coffee, fingers poised over the keyboard, or gripping your pen, what do you start with? The first line? The middle, the blurb, or perhaps the end? There is no template, rule or secret. Every writer is different. Each project is unique, sparked by a different idea, deadline, or moment of inspiration.

The opening line of a novel or short story is crucial; a story within a sentence, an invitation into a world, an appetiser for what is to follow. There are many great examples. Two of my favourites are: “Hale Knew, before he had been in Brighton three hours, that they meant to murder him” (Graham Greene: Brighton Rock), and “Juliet is one of twins, only she came out alone” (Sarah Walker: Camphor Laurel).

Opening line it may be, but you don’t have to come up with it right away. It might appear more easily when you are editing the second, third or even fifteenth draft. It may come to you in the middle of the night, on the bus, or when you are about to post your manuscript to your agent. It may have been there all along, on page five, hidden beneath some excess words, clumsy phrasing and a now superfluous introduction. Or, perhaps, if you are lucky, it did come to you first, fully-formed and perfect.

Planning is important too. I’ve seen writers show chapter-bychapter breakdowns, excel sheets, diagrams on a whiteboard, detailed scribbles in a tiny notebook. It is an individual thing. My first serious attempt at writing was a detective novel. For months I thought I had to plot it all out in advance and write it in chronological order. I felt like a tremendous failure because I didn’t even know who the murderer was! I had the first chapter, a body, a detective, and there I was: stuck.

My mentor encouraged me to concentrate on scenes. This freed me up, and the novel began to flow. Not at all in order but as things came to me; leaving holes all over the place. When I finally pieced them all together and got my story down, I returned to my plot and structure (I used a timeline, a bit like they piece together on the whiteboard in Without a Trace) with new purpose.

Perhaps you will want to start with a rough plot, at least. But how can you map it all out if you haven’t got to know your characters, set the scene, made some mistakes? Some suggest starting with dialogue. This can loosen you up, and allow you to build your characters first, suggesting who they are rather than merely describing them.

The most interesting stuff, that surprises even you, is often unplanned, coming when you are able to lose yourself in the writing or in the course of solving a problem – how did she get the body out through the restaurant’s revolving door with no one seeing a thing?

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