Get into the habit of writing

I guess I first I had my sights set on being a writer sometime around the fifth or sixth beer all those years ago, my mind running circles in an inebriated fog of possibilities.

Mad about literature, a devourer of books, a life stretched before me, my name one day emblazoned on the spines of books facing outward from some musty book shop of the future.

Ah yes. The intellectual life.

When you’re eighteen or nineteen, and high on alcohol or drugs, anything seems possible.

You have your own dreams of being an author, and they may be similar.

The question is: What are you doing about it?

Are you only dreaming the life of an author? 

If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you’ve gotten a taste of my inspiration must be accompanied by perspiration sermon.

An idea, a creative burst, will simply remain that if not followed by the writing itself.

So … what are you doing to scratch that itch, that longing to be a writer?

Are you sitting your ass in that chair and putting down words?

If so, do you have a schedule, a regular time for writing?

Or does the thought of setting aside blocks of time to write everyday sound too much like a nine-to-five job, a gig you were hoping to avoid by becoming a writer in the first place?

Writing a book, make no mistake about it, requires some degree of discipline.

It’s that daily writing routine that gets you into the rhythm, the momentum needed to finish that marathon for writing the book.

Make your writing dreams come true.

Get up tomorrow and knock off a few pages. Hell, a few paragraphs anyway. 

Then repeat it the next day and the day after that.

A groundbreaking study done in the 1950s by Dr. Maxwell Maltz concluded that it can take a minimum of just 21 days to form a new habit. 

Think about that.

Why not try on a new habit – the writing habit.

What have you got to lose?