Writing doesn't come without a cost...

I wanted to post on something today that has been eating at me for a while now. I feel like I’ve been using all these excuses for why it has taken me so long to write Forsaken. But when it all comes down to it the answer to getting writing done is just time. It takes a lot of time to crank out 94,000 words like Branded is. But the thing is, you don’t have to crank out 2,000 words a day. Every little bit counts, even if it’s only a few hundred words. I feel really depressed if at the end of the day I haven’t written anything. It throws my whole day out of whack if I don’t get any writing done. I feel like I’ve gotten nothing done.

I’m not usually one of those writers who get’s ideas that come to them at random moments. I don’t keep a notebook next to my bed because ideas come to me at 2 in the morning. It occasionally happens but not often. I get my ideas when I’m sitting down in front of my laptop with a notebook and pen next to it. There are a lot of times where I stare at a blank screen and sheet of paper for a long time but something eventually comes. The point is, you need to sit down and put the time in if you want to get something written.

Nathan Bransford, a literary agent, did this seriously great post on how the greatest strength of a writer is willpower. Check the article out HERE. Stick at it. If you want to write bad enough you’ll find a way to make it happen and you’ll find something to write about. If that doesn’t happen, you don’t want it bad enough.

I feel like I’ve finally gotten into a groove with Forsaken. It’s taken me a long, long time to get there but I’m finally there. The reason I got there? I finally started sitting down everyday, sometimes multiple times a day to work on it. I’ve been trying to take 2 hours a day, though out the day to work on my writing. 2 hours doesn’t seem like much but believe me, in my current situation in life, it’s a lot.

Now, I rant about putting in the time but that doesn’t mean that other things aren’t going to suffer a little bit because of that diverted time. Other things are going to go undone. Today I realized that I didn’t have more than one clean pair of underware and that there was a heaping mountain of laundry to be done. My kids watch way too much TV to keep them out of my hair for a while so I can write. My bathroom really, really needs to be cleaned. And there are endless other things that need to be done but don’t get done because I choose to write instead.

So, are you willing to pay a price for writing? Are you willing to put in the “butt-in-chair” time?