Hi and Happy New Year! You may know that in addition to writing 5 or 6 novels a year, I still have a day job. I’m a partner in a marketing communications agency. I work 3 full days in my company and then have 4 full days to write. Of course, that makes 7 days, so you can tell there aren’t a lot of days off. I have to note that i don’t have kids, so my life isn’t as complicated as many peoples. Still, a lot of writers ask me how i write so many books a year.

The answer of, course, is one word at a time.

I set a word goal for the day and for the week. The goal is pretty much the same every week with very few exceptions (during the holidays, i actually took full days off, but that’s rare.) I set a minimum of 1000 words a day. Then i shoot for 10,000 words a week. To write 10K a week, i have to write 2k words on 3 of the days, at least. Usually, i do 1000 on my day job days and 2k on the other days with one day i can fall back to 1k if i want to. If i write extra words on one day, i can either go for a higher total, or take time off on one day.

Ten thousand words a week is 520,000 words a year. That’s a bunch of books. (My husband just told me to add that blogs don’t count!  LOL)

Ten thousand words  a week means you can write and polish a full length novel in 2 months or less depending on how smoothly you write. A novella can be achieved in a month.

To a new writer, 1000 words a day sounds hard, but it’s not when you practice. Here’s what i recommend.

• Forget the idea that you need inspiration or that you can get writer’s block. Sit down and write something. If it’s bad, you can change it later. Just count the damned words! LOL.
• Learn to write a hundred words or so at a time. You don’t need big blocks of time. Between work assignments, slip in a hundred words in the cracks. Soon you’ll have a thousand.
• Get a laptop that supports this approach and makes it easy to write in spurts, ie, you don’t have to restart every time you open the thing.
• Get a planner or something like that. Get some “am writing” stickers. (I get mine from Rabbit Stickers on Etsy) Post one on every day and feel the thrill when you write 1000 words completed.
• Don’t go to bed until you write the words.
• If you have to miss a day, make it up the next day, but don’t do that often.

Does this make writing a job? You bet your butt-in-chair it does. If you want to publish books and make money doing it, you must make it a job. You can be a hobbyist writer, but don’t kid yourself. Writing is hard! If you love writing anyway, you’re a pro. Might as well get paid to be one.

I wish you a joyous, action-packed, writing filled 2018! Hugs! BTW, my new book, Bleu Balls, releases in a few days! And there’s a series sale for all the Balls books! Check it out.