I can’t tell you how many people have said to me, “I want to write a book.” But how many of those people actually take the time and act upon doing that?
Not many, I assure you.
They have this glamorous picture of what it’s like to be a writer. After all, writers make big bucks and get to work from wherever they are and wouldn’t it be cool to have a book with your name on the cover?
It is. I have 10 books with my name on the cover.
But here’s what you don’t think about when you think of writing: It’s damned hard work!
Writing for a living means having to produce on command. When I was writing short stories and articles, it was often more about what the editor needed than what I felt like writing that day. It’s still that way for me now. I work for an online publishing company, and much of what I’m writing has absolutely NOTHING to do with kids or writing fiction, believe me. It’s all business, 100% of the time.
But even when I wasn’t writing for a paid position, I considered writing my profession. Every single day, I got up with my baby. (My daugher is 21 years old now, but I started writing before she was 1.) And after breakfast, for the first hour of the day, I’d let her play by herself. Of course, I was right there, watching the whole time. But I’d let her look at her books, play with toys, watch some Sesame Street, or whatever she wanted to do for that first hour of the day. (I was really helping her to be independent at the same time and to learn to amuse herself, you see.)
And I would write. Even if I didn’t put a word on the page, I knew I had to sit there and stare at a blank screen. In fact, when I first started writing, it was with paper and pen, not a computer. It wasn’t until I’d been writing for awhile that I realized it was easier to just type into the screen. But I’d still sit there and think about what my story would be like and even if I didn’t write anything, I’d research what I wanted to write about.
One hour a day.
Even if I wrote just ONE page a day, I’d have 365 pages by the end of the year, right? Think about that. It is a whole book!
If you want to be a writer, you need to establish a schedule for yourself. You may have to find your hour a day at the end of the day or the middle of the day, but you’ll need to find it. Discipline yourself to sit in front of that blank paper or that blank computer screen and work.
One hour a day.
Anyone can do that. And when you establish that routine, you WILL get things done.
