On the Poynter writing website, Roy Peter Clark offers this gem that changed his life forever:

In 1983, Donald Murray wrote on a chalkboard a little diagram that changed my writing and teaching forever. It was a modest blueprint of the writing process as he understood it, five words that describe the steps toward creating a story. As I remember them now, the words were: Idea. Collect. Focus. Draft. Clarify. In other words, the writer conceives a story idea, collects things to support it, discovers what the story is really about, attempts a first draft, and revises in the quest for greater clarity.

I don't know how much it takes to change Clark's life but his little checklist for great writing is about as inspiring as a nice warm pitcher of stale beer.