How to start a speech: Begin already
The best way to write a speech is to plunge right in. Or so wrote Q.E.D., the pen name of a successful oil company speechwriter who contributed to Speechwriters Newsletter many years ago —ed.
Somebody said to me the other day: “But how do you get the speech started?” From the desperation in the final word, I suspected that my interrogator had a speech assignment, had done the research, outlined an approach even if only mentally, and was having trouble launching a first draft.
Begin already.
That is the best advice.
Launch, jump, start, say anything, just get going. And keep going on this initial impulse until you have a hundred words or so.
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