Try this writing tip:  take the first line of a novel, or short story, or poem, written by someone else, and use this first line as a springboard into your own writing.  Write a page or two, starting with the other author’s line as your first line, and see where it takes you.  Then when you are done, delete the first line that is not yours. The rest of it will be.

Here’s one I wrote, starting with a line from a poem by Hildegarde of Bingen, “I am the yearning for good.”

I am the yearning for good because when I feel the nasty thoughts of anger or smallness, jealousy or fear, when I want to snarl, “she can take her xyz and shove it up her you-know-what” or when I want to whine, “why does he get so much and I get so little?” or when I want to yell “Get the hell away from here” – when I want to say these things, I feel guilty, and that’s how I know I yearn for good. Even in the face of despair that I am not, and may never be, really good, not like I want to be.

I am the yearning for good in the midst of fear, strong as dark whiskey brewed in black winter caves. That smoky taste of fear and lust rises in my throat and oh how I yearn for good then, for a crisp light breeze to blow me outside to where wild weeds grow in lush profusion even though they’re not supposed to, even where their beauty is not seen.