Operating in a Silo

Talking about writing isn’t writing. I know a thousand people who talk about writing, have talked about writing for years and yet, they have no completed projects. They work on the first fifty pages of a story they’ve been writing for five years but have yet to finish a single book. They go to conferences and sometimes even get themselves a request for a full from an editor. But they don’t have a full because they talk about writing instead of actually writing.

Yes, this sounds harsh. I’m not trying to kill anyone’s dream. But writing is a job. A job. If you want it to be a hobby (and there’s not a damned thing wrong with that either, not everyone wants to be a professional author) then it doesn’t matter. But if you want to be a writer you have to actually write. You have to put it first when it’s supposed to be first. Whining to me or to your friends about how such and such has it so much easier because they don’t have a day job or whatever is worse than useless, it’s negative. You will never have any schedule but your own. Period. It doesn’t matter that author x has all day to write in a swanky office with assistants and snacks delivered every two hours. You’re not author x and you’re never going to be an author of any kind unless you stop making excuses and finish the damned book.