The problem of getting started

Right now I am reading this book, by Anne Lamott. It is called "bird by bird" and describes the process of creative writing. It all makes total sense, but the problem is: how to get started. Lamott asks her students to write about school lunch or something else trivial and encourages the aspiring writers to just let it flow, because somewhere in all those pages you might find a paragraph which makes it all worth.
My daughter often wants me to make up stories for her. She appreciates anything, and if a story is good, she wants more. So we have a series about the little octopus who wants to do everything at the same time. No wonder, he has 8 arms, why shouldn't he use them, but, of course, he gets tangled up in many, many knots and his mom has to come and save him and from there they work it all out. When I am writing, I am this little octopus. There are so many things which want to come out, that they seem to clutter the flow.
Also I somtimes just come up with the German expression for something I want to say, sometimes it seems to be easier to write in english. It does not really contribute to the flow of writing if you have to look up words and expression. But if you ever have to do so, here is a good online translation service: leo.dict.org. I use it often, when I write for CScout. We describe trends and market developments. And see, this writing is totally different. You do your research and when you know enough about the topic, or at least, you think, you know enough about the topic, you start to write your own version, enhance it with some personal thoughts and some insights you gained and done it is. But when I start to research my own mind and life I do not seem to come to an end. This is not, because of my life is so extraordinary or adventurous or incredible, it is simply, that is hard to focus on a specific point. It starts out with pretzels and ends up at a baker I met once, while I was still writing for a local newspaper in Germany. He was a fairly big, but mostly unhappy young man who had to take over the family business. He hated his job, getting up every morning before sunrise, kneading the dough and forming little rolls and - well - my beloved pretzels - that was the sadest, loneliest, most desperate thing for him to do. It is hard enough to get up every morning, especially if there is nothing to look forward too, and on top of that it was 4 a.m. So, what he did; He locked himself up, supposedly with a bunch of dynamite and than he called the police telling them, that he wants to blow himself up, including all the pretzels, rolls, ovens, and kneading machines. His parents were shocked, the grounds of the bakery were surrounded by policecars, fire trucks, an ambulance. And I walked in. I had too, it is not, that I really like stories like this one. But than people always seem to tell me what they went through and how they feel and why. Usually I just listened. And that was what the baker needed. He talked and talked and while he did, some police officers made sure, he did not really have some explosives and this was that. There was a picture in the newspaper, an article, I can't really recall and hopefully many more pretzels and rolls up until today. Who knows? The weird thing about being a local journalist is, that you dive into a certain situation, an event, into someones mind / you think a little, write a lot and of you go... more stories are waiting, anytime and everywhere. Somehow I also learned, that really everything can be a story, it just depends on the angle you find.
I wonder what Sara hears in the stories I tell her. Maybe it is my love for her which makes her listen so intently. Well, what made me listen to all these strangers over the years? I wanted to hear the truth, I felt, that they needed somebody to listen, i wanted to give them a voice... But for me? I am still in search for my own voice, my writers voice. So, if you read this, well, you know...