Day 5 – No More Excuses

Some days are harder than others. Like everyone else, some mornings I wake up and don’t want to do a damn thing. Today was one of those. I sat down to write three different times and barely got a word out. Creatively, it just wasn’t happening.

Normally, I would have packed it in and tried again tomorrow. But I have a daily blog now with people watching me. Can’t be a slacker anymore. Here’s the thing though – this is how I was when I first started out. When I had the hunger to be a successful author.

That’s the funny thing about success sometimes… it can hamper that hunger. Somewhere along the way I lost some of that drive. Not that I don’t like to write, I do, but when I didn’t have my ass to the fire anymore, I didn’t feel the need to go out and kick ass every single day.

And I’m not the only one. You would be shocked to know how many authors, or aspiring authors, have messaged me over the years with a laundry lists of reasons why they can’t get writing time in. I’ve read them all. 99% are bullshit. My excuses are 100% bullshit.

Tired at the end of the day? Suck it up and get a few hundred words down. Last book didn’t sell? Write another one. Laptop died? Grab a pen. Job is crushing your soul? Get more words down so you can quit. There are a million excuses not to write, but there’s only one way to finish books.

You gotta sit your ass down and write.

I can already tell what comments I’m gonna get here and on social media… a ton of reasons why you don’t have time do it. They’re mostly crap. Mine are too. Days like today happen more often than I’d like, but guess what happened this afternoon? The fourth time I sat down to write, the pages finally started filling. If you want to make a living as an author, you have to treat it like a job. Even if you already have one. Or two.

It can be done. Shit, if I can do it, you can. I’m a moron. Odds are, you’re a better writer than I am. You can make it happen.

Just 500 words a day will get you two 300 page novels a year. You can write that many on your phone while you’re sitting on the toilet. Just don’t let anyone else use your phone after that.

So let’s throw all our excuses out the window and embrace the grind. If you want to be an author, you gotta write.

You can do it.

And no, I didn’t write this about you. This is about me. But if the shoe fits…

What did I do for my writing business today, even though I struggled to get anything down? I wrote 1377 words (roughly 5-7 pages) in Decayed (The Hunger #5), bringing the total to 65542 (somewhere between 260 and 300 pages).

I also added the latest episode of the Final Guys podcast to my website. If you haven’t listened to it yet, you should give it a try. We recommend (or not) 8-10 movies, books, and TV shows every week. We have a lot of laughs too.

Speaking of Final Guys, I also added a great book review to the website for the anthology for Chiral Mad 4 (M4D): An Anthology of Collaborations. We have some great contributors over there who write movie and book reviews for us. W.S. Bradford, a fantastic author, wrote this one. We have an incredible community of people you would get along with. Come on over.

This afternoon, for the upcoming episode, I went to see Brightburn. I know, I know… my life is so hard.

I also cobbled together this blog, which is now over 600 words. See ya tomorrow.

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