Practice writing.
Do it a lot.
Have fun.
This is Start with this, a podcast featuring Night Vale creators Joseph Fink and me, Jeffrey Cranor.
Each episode we discuss a topic and then give you two assignments, something to consume and something to create.
Start with this.
Present tense.
Art is hard.
Starting is hard.
If you want to start somewhere, you can start with this.
You can start with this.
The future and the past are both infinite.
The future has no end and the past no beginning.
We rarely tell stories in future tense, but it's a possibility.
In fact, storytelling using future tense verbs would be nothing but possibilities.
But most fiction writing, or storytelling in general, happens in the past.
Once upon a time.
Seeing our fictional narrative as having already happened allows us as writers, a vague certainty, a sense that there was closure at some point, that we know everything that's about to happen.
As writers, we should have certainty in our stories, regardless of verb tense.
But there's a deeply psychological advantage to writing in past tense.