One of the perks of working for Boundless are the e-mails I receive from readers, full of inspiration and challenge. I've been surprised, however, by the number of e-mails I've received with questions about writing. Readers have asked how ideas grow into articles, how to approach editors, and how to transition into full-time paid freelance work.

I think I can best answer these questions by offering some of the advice from more experienced writers that has helped me. Here are some invigorating ideas:

Begin Where You Are

I spent almost a decade paralyzed by fear. I knew I wanted to write but I lacked the courage to throw myself into it. I spent too much energy doubting myself. I wish I'd come across Brenda Ueland's magnificent book If You Want to Write during those listless years.

According to Ueland many talented people don't write because they can't bear to do it imperfectly. But every writer begins where they are. Instead of asking questions like "Am I good enough?" or "Will this sell?" It's better to forge on ahead, to engage hope with action by devoting 15 minutes a day to the craft. These questions cannot be answered in the abstract — these questions can only be answered by doing.

Brenda Ueland offers this helpful exercise: "'See how bad a story you can write. See how dull you can be. Go ahead. That would be fun and interesting. I will give you ten dollars if you can write something thoroughly dull from beginning to end!' And of course no one can," she writes.

Plan to write shabby prose regularly — devote a daily segment of time to the task, and let the work have its way with you. "With writing, you start where you are, and you usually do it poorly," writes Anne Lamott, "You just do it — you do it afraid. And something happens."

Set the Stage

Writers have quirky routines to get their juices flowing. Novelist Kent Haruf heads down to a coal room in his basement, blindfolds himself and hammers out his first draft in the dark. Toni Morrison wakes before the sun, brews coffee and sips it as the sun rises. "Writers all devise ways to approach that place where they expect to make that contact," she writes. "Where they become the conduit, or where they engage in this mysterious process. For me, light is the signal in that transition. It's not being in the light, it's being there before it arrives. It enables me, in some sense."

I have a simple routine that has helped me to write four books and nearly a hundred articles over the past few years. First, I put my child (Anna when she was small and now Natalie) down for a nap, I set the coffee to brew and rush around the house tidying up. As soon as the pot is full, I cease cleaning and sit down at my computer with a steaming hot cup of coffee and some chocolate.

These routines can train your hands and mind to write. It's easier to produce more when your body knows what's expected. Cues like the aroma of fresh brewed coffee, the slants of the morning sun, the bleakness of a coal room, all say to your fingers — go for it!

Invest in Tools

Fortunately, a writing career has low start-up costs. But you'll be more efficient if you invest in a few tools. Early on, an established writer urged me to purchase The Writer's Market. This book lists thousands of magazines and newspapers that accept freelance submissions, and it offers practical advice for how to approach individual editors.

Although the book sells for about $30, this investment can yield big dividends. The first copy I bought in 2001 helped me sell my first magazine piece for $500.

It also pays to purchase a computer you love to work with — even if you have to put it on the credit card. It is risky and irritating to work with an old clunker. If your computer feels good to work with then you'll naturally increase your motivation — especially if you have to pay off that darn credit card bill!

Find a Friend with Gentle Eyes

In Stephen King's book On Writing he says that he does most of his writing in two drafts followed by a polish. The first draft is the "closed door phase" because he shuts his study door on the world and writes as quickly before he loses courage. Once he's had a chance to revise and polish a bit, he surrenders the manuscript to his wife, Tabby, who believes in him completely and always challenges him to tie up loose ends.

In the book he describes a long car trip in which she's reading one of his manuscripts. "There were some funny parts in it — at least I thought so — and I kept peeking over at her to see if she was chuckling (or at least smiling). I didn't think she'd notice but of course she did. On my eighth or ninth peek (I guess it could have been my fifteenth) she looked up and snapped: 'Pay attention to your driving before you crack us up, will you? Stop being so ... needy!'"

I take pleasure in the idea that even famous writers need reassurance. As Stephen King writes, "The truth is, most writers are needy. Especially between the first draft and the second, when the study door swings open and the light of the world shines in."

I have a friend who I call my writing midwife because she helps me through the painful parts of writing, the discouragement, the moments when I want to chuck my manuscripts in the trash. She keeps me from despair by holding my hand and reminding me that I'll soon be holding that beautiful baby in my arms.

If you're seeking somebody like this, pray that God will lead you to this person — and that you can be that person to another. Be ready to give and to receive. Don't be shy about putting your feelers out. As Anne Lamott writes, "You'll know when that person is right for you and when you're right for that person. It's not unlike finding a mate, where little by little you begin to feel that you've stepped into a shape that was waiting there all along."

Why Write?

Sometimes we're tempted to write to impress. So we overwrite or never even begin.

But there is a simpler, childlike way, and this is the path of the great artists, like Vincent Van Gogh.

In Ueland's book she told this story: In Van Gogh's early twenties he was studying to be a clergyman in London. He'd never thought twice about becoming an artist. But as he wrote a letter to his brother back in Holland, "He looked out his window at a watery twilight, a thin lamppost, a star, and said in his letter something like this, 'It is so beautiful I must show you how it looks.'"

"It was just this: He loved something — the sky, say," Ueland wrote, "He loved human beings. He wanted to show them how beautiful the sky was. So he painted it for them. And that was all there was to it."