Drafting

Drafting is what you do when you're really ready to start writing.  If you haven't already done your prewriting, start there!  Prewriting can save you hours of pain and frustration later.

To be ready to draft, you should have some kind of outline or plan for what you'll say.   You should certainly have a clear (written!) purpose and audience statement.

You don't have to start drafting at the beginning of your paper.  Take whatever section catches your interest most at the moment and begin there.  The introduction is often the last thing you write.  But if it makes you feel better, go ahead and start there.

If you start slowing down, if you hit a spot that you don't really feel like writing, you're perfectly free to just scribble a note or two and move on.  You can flesh those parts out after doing more research or anytime during the revision stage.

Once you've got a rough draft of your paper down, you'll feel a lot better about the assignment!  If you run into any problems, you can solve them now (much better) and not the night before the paper's due (much worse). 

And once you've got the draft down, it's very easy to switch your organization around, too.  Do as much of this as you can now instead of later.