I’m in the thick of writing the next book in the Elita Brown series after thinking about the plot for months and months. Ah, the writing life!
If you’re a writer (or if you know a writer) who needs a little boost today, hear this:
At some point, you stop thinking, and you start writing. I remember when my dissertation advisor at the University of Michigan told me this: The researching won’t ever end. You could research forever. At some point, you just stop researching and start writing.
Maybe you’re at this point. You’ve waited long enough, thought hard enough, prayed long enough, studied long enough—it’s time to just start writing.
I’ve seen it work all kinds of ways if you want to write a book. Some people, like me, don’t work bit by bit. I think for a long time and then, one day, about three months before a deadline, I write and write and write. I’ll write six hours a day. I’ll write when I wake up. I’ll write before bedtime. I’lll write as the dinner cooks or the laundry dries.
Others write bit by bit. I’ve tried this, but it always ends up that I’m the kind of writer who fully immerses herself in the world of the book and writes thousands of words a day. You might need to think as you write, a little here and a little there.
But most of all, if you only remember one thing I said today, it’s to start writing.