Pre-Writing

A lot of time in my 3 years of middle school literacy class was spent on learning, practicing, and perfecting the structure of a 5 paragraph essay. By the time I finished 8th grade, I could have written a essay on any topic within a half hour in my sleep! The only pre-writing I remember being taught was the cluster mapping, or as my teacher called it, spider webbing... or it may have been spider legs, who knows. I have a lot of experience with it and it has proved itself helpful to me. Definitely one that will stick with me for probably the rest of my life, as it is ingrained in my head.
    Sometimes when I sit down to write something I don't know where to start. I'll end up thinking about all of my ideas and exactly how I'll say them but I end up not finding anything good enough to put down. When this happens I make myself  free write and jot down whatever my mind thinks of. This is a challenge for me because I love to perfect each sentence and put everything in it's proper place before moving onto the next. I end up doing most of my editing on my rough draft. The practice of free writing really helps me get a start when I'm having a hard time.
    I also make lists. This works for me at times when I'm thinking up many ideas at once. They usually look like tiny scribbles on scraps of paper.
    I used to not like pre-writing and would just jump in and begin. But now I would say 9 times out of 10, pre-writing is helpful and makes my writing process easier and guarantees less editing in the end.