Teaching the Process of Creating and Writing

I'm getting close to that point in the quarter when I begin teaching my students paragraph writing. I find that sometimes it's not a matter of how to fix a paragraph that they have just written; sometimes it's getting them to write anything down at all!

Obviously, since I wrestle with my own demons, I can sympathize when they sit there and stare at the blank sheet of paper. Before I begin, I try to clarify
1. whom they are writing for
2. why they are writing the assignment (the big general purposes--to inform, to persuade, to entertain)
3. the length they should aim for (short is okay, as long as it is complete)

But you know what, I sometimes forget to remind myself of the same things when I am writing myself! I have realized lately that I have 10,000 words and not much has happened ye--in a young adult novel. Now, of course, sumpins gotta happen soon, or I done lost my audience! So I took a long walk the other day trying to figure out some action to add. And I think I figured it out, but I haven't yet written it down... the blank page is staring at me, and it's not even a real blank page! It's in my head. Yuck.

This quarter, I am going to really be working on helping my students develop their ideas--and in addition to all the basic ways to develop their ideas--free writing, clustering, etc., I'm going to be adding doodling...then doodling with words.... See, I have one student with severe learning disabilities. She creative, though. She just has trouble capturing words and pinning them down on paper. But since she's an artist, I'm hoping by drawing first, she's going to be able to then translate from image to words...

Wish us both luck.