I write every chance I get, any time of day, deep in the night when I can’t sleep, often while my hubby is watching a movie. I just put on my ear phones and listen to my favorite “mood” music and shut out the TV.
I just sold three more books (still to be written) to Sourcebooks, which, when finished, will bring my total published books to 72 over about 39 years. Those years have gone so fast. I have no memory of even writing many of those books. It’s all kind of a blur. But I do remember the plot of every book. Sometimes I have to look at the blurb on the back to remind myself of the names of the characters, but most of the actual story quickly comes back to me.
I squeezed most of those books into my life while working full time and raising two active boys, then spending a lot of time with grandchildren. I’ve always led a very, very busy life, and when working full time, I often sat up after everyone else went to bed and wrote until 1 or 2 am – then got up at 5 am and put in another long day.
Yes, it was hard. Very hard. Yet I enjoyed every word I wrote because I love writing and have loved every character I’ve ever written.
And that’s what writing should be to any writer – a JOY, not a JOB. You should be so “into” your characters that you can’t wait to get back to them and continue their story. In my case, I want to see what happens to them, because even I don’t know until I go into the “next” chapter. I don’t use an outline and don’t plan out my books. I just start one and let the characters take me where they want to go.
Too often I talk to other writers who have been working on the same book for years. I don’t understand that. If you aren’t interested enough in your book to finish it and start submitting it, then don’t write it at all. Start a different story, something that keeps you so excited that, like a reader who can’t put down what she’s reading, you can’t stop writing your story!
I can tell those writers who look at their writing as more of a job than a joy. They struggle to find the time to write and come up with all kinds of excuses not to sit down and keep going. My problem is usually finding time to do everything else, but I never have trouble finding time to write. My stories and their characters are with me 24/7, 7 days a week. When we stay at our condo in Vegas winters, while my husband plays poker, I sit at Starbucks and proofread my daily writing. Why waste money gambling when I could be making money on my writing?
A true writer never sees her work as a job she dreads or struggles to find time for. A true writer can’t wait to get back to the computer, and she not only works on the story at hand, but she also has more stories in her head just itching to be told. A true writer never runs out of ideas, and she is so excited about the story she is working on that she gets in as much writing time as possible every day. She doesn’t sit watching TV for 3-4 hours every night. She sits and writes 3-4 hours every night. If you have time to do nothing but watch TV, then you have time to write. Once you get into the groove of working writing into your day, it gets easier and easier.
If you let writing be a JOY and not a JOB, you’ll find you can produce a lot more books in a lot less time. That joy has allowed me to produce an average of two big books a year for the last 35 years, and all those older books are still selling, a lot of them having already been reissued two and three times over the years. That’s how you build your name, which in turn builds your sales.
Write! Write! Write! You don’t get published by wishing it, and you don’t get published by working on the same book for years. I’ve heard some writers say they don’t want to “work” that hard. Honey, if you’re calling it work, you aren’t a real writer. Let it be a JOY!
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