“Write about it by day, and dream about it by night.”

E.B. White

It almost always comes at night. It doesn’t matter if I’ve been up for sixteen hours and the night before, I only slept for three and if I don’t get some sleep now I may not even get three hours because the baby will make sure of it.

I write during the day, I pound my head (figuratively) during the day when a plot twist irritates me, stumps me, or just won’t flow. I’ll bang my head for days, write around the problem part, stew about it, brood about it…and when I least expect it, I’m laying down in bed and viola…the solution appears.

Not sure why. Maybe it’s because I’ve cleared my mind of the story and that all I needed was a little perspective to figure out the problem. Or maybe it’s a Murphy’s Law thing… I wanted a solution and it’s going to come when it’s not always convenient. Or it could be one of those… Be careful what you wish for…deals.

Sometimes the problem is seriously bad…as in maybe having to pitch the entire thing and start from scratch. When I start thinking along those dire lines, I really start to stress. Trying to work it through, I’ll talk to myself, I’ll talk to God, I’ll talk to the dog, but that isn’t when the answer comes.

It comes right when I’m ready to heave the laptop against a wall and have a tantrum.

If you’re having a plot problem, take a few steps back. Go at it from a different angle. Talk to God or talk to the dog. And keep a notepad by the bed because if you’re anything like me, that’s when you’ll figure out what the problem is.

Writers write. It’s what defines us. You can’t have a writer without writing.

A writer doesn’t write for fame, fortune, or glory. Although admittedly, I like money enough that the possibility of writing the next huge breakthrough book is a sweet fantasy, that’s not why I do it. It shouldn’t be the motivating force behind any writer.

The motivating force should be the story. It should be because you have a story in your head, and all the voices won’t shut up until you put that story to paper. It should be because that story is compelling you to write it and you have no choice but to listen. The story that compells a writer to write is the story that will compell readers to finish it.

Don’t write the book because you have dreams of seeing your name on the NY Times Bestseller List. Write the book because the story demands it and won’t give you peace otherwise. Then…if your name does show up on the lists, you can bask. But if you set out to be a bestselling writer, I think you’ve already missed the boat. You aren’t doing it because the story compells you…and that means your story probably isn’t going to be that compelling.

But if you’ve got a story that demands to be told, characters who won’t shut up, and a dire need to seek out the keyboard at all hours of the day, then you’re a writer.

Write the story…because that’s what we do. Writers write.

I write fast. Always have. But I’m also very lazy…..I put the pro in procrastinate. Has nothing to do with not enjoying the writing process, just has to do with enjoying the procrastination process.

So when the first 70 Days of Sweat writing challenge rolled around, I figured I’d give it a shot, although I didn’t expect I’d change my writing ways much. Just because…well, I’m lazy.

I didn’t count on my competitive nature, though. I am very competitive. Doesn’t matter who I’m competing with, what it’s about, what it’s for. I don’t necessarily have to do better than others, but for some reason, the thought of competition motivates me. I take taekwondo, technically speaking I’m a blue belt because they started me back at white (which I hated) even though 9 years ago, I tested for my brown and was getting ready to test for red, then I got pregnant. You put me up in front of a black belt, it doesn’t matter that I’m an overweight asthmatic with little coordination… I go after them. It doesn’t matter that I might get my tail kicked, not as long as I make them work for it.

I’m competitve. So the challenge just pushed the right buttons for me. What did I do to boost up my writing output? I already mentioned I write fast. I can put out between 1500-2000 words in an hour or so if I’m left alone. And if I focus on the computer.

So what I did…I made myself focus.

I used to write with the TV, just for noise more than anything. No longer.

I stopped playing around on email.

I started keeping a spreadsheet towards the end of how many words I wrote in one day and then next day, I try to top it.

I stopped going back to re-edit ad nauseum, because that can wait until after the book is written.

I cut my blog-hopping in half (sob).

And what happened? My writing output went through the roof. I completed one full length book for Berkley, a novella for Berkley, two category length books for two of my epubs, and I started several new projects. I wrote more in those 70 days than I had in the previous five months.

The trick to getting a book written really involves no trick. It just requires writing. Whatever it is that motivates you, whether it’s competing (even if it’s against yourself) or promising yourself something special if you meet your goal at the end of the challenge, whatever it takes, find that button, and push it. Keep pushing it.