Writing a Paper

When I am writing at paper, the first thing I usually do is start when no one else is in my room and there is no noise around. I must have silence when I get started. When I pull up my Microsoft Word, the first thing I see is that stupid blinking line taunting me. The blank page gives me an immediate feeling of failure knowing that I have nothing written down yet. Once I get my header down I feel like I can get started on my paper. Once I have my thoughts flowing I can play some music. Usually some form of easy flowing music to keep my mind at ease. If i listen to any rock or anything with a quick change in tempo, my attention is taken off my paper and I lose track of my last thought. Once I lose track of my thoughts and don't know what to write next, I must to have silence again until I can get my thoughts organized. I usually write for 30 minutes at a time and then take 30min to an hour of a break, to re-organize my thoughts and make sure I don't burn out on the paper. The positive side to that is that I can write a good bit in the 30 or so minutes i do spend writing.
One of the best things I have ever written and what really got me started on writing in general was something I wrote for my brother before he went to college. My brother is my best friend and not wanting him to leave I wrote down how proud I was of him and how much I was going to miss him. I gave this to him the night he graduated high school. I was in the 8th grade. I remember thinking that if I could put this much emotion, and work into writing, and get such a great feeling of satisfaction than I should try doing that more often. It wasn't really a "paper" per say but that it the first thing that I really wrote with emotion. That letter that I wrote to him got me focused on what writing is and that writing a paper is more than just research papers and book reports. After that anytime a teacher gave us an opportunity to write on an open topic, I took it as a chance to put emotion and feeling behind what I decided to write.