Someone's been reading this?

 It's hard to imagine that someone has been reading this blog, but it's apparently true.

No comments, but views - in some cases a hundred or more, on posts seemingly randomly selected from my mind.

Considering it's been two years? since I've stopped by and added anything, that's wildly surprising. But I guess if you leave a pile of rubbish in the woods, sooner or later an animal will follow the stench. That's how this blog exists on the endless space that is the internet.

I sat down tonight to write something, anything, but found my mind stiff and resistant to the idea of writing anything that approached fiction. I managed a sentence, devoid of character and depth, and deleted it before it became a lonely turd on the sidewalk of broken dreams.

Melodramatic much?

Seriously, why should it come as a surprise that fiction is a struggle? My mind is consumed with work of the salary-earning variety, which involves only the writing of emails to answer various corporate summons and customer inquiry. I read less than ever, which is still more than most but less than I should, and far less than anyone with aspirations of fiction writing ought to read.

My habits are broken, my life a survival mechanism. I meander from one work day to the next, revel in 39 hour weekends that are filled with sleep, naps (a different kind of sleep, and if you are a napper you know what I mean), worrying about things I often can't control (not good, not good at all), relaxing with my wife, relaxing with myself, exercising too little, drinking too much too often (not yet a problem, but the horizon isn't far), and thinking I should really get back to this writing thing.

I opened a Google doc, typed a sentence, deleted it, and closed the doc. I checked my email, of which there was none, and then I checked on this ancient abandoned excuse for a blog, once so full of hope and now a testament to the passage of time and the ineffective habits of an undisciplined... something.

I try not to beat myself up, but the flogging would definitely be deserved on several fronts.

Still, here I am, typing away, trying to turn a train of thought into a locomotive of locus. Striving to recall the sensation of fingers on keyboard, mind at ease as the background music, er, make that background ambience of a YouTube video displaying a nonexistent open air den with a large fireplace burning bright in front of a cozy looking couch backed by natural wood bookshelves and littered with classic-appearing books that somehow have not deteriorated from mold in the constant downpour just beyond a porch railing - what is this place, anyway, and why does it appeal when it would clearly be wet and smell of mildew if it were anything but animation?

Grammar has failed me, or have I failed grammar? Does it matter? Who's reading this, anyway?

Are you just reading the headlines and finding me via various inauspicious searches, landing on my door looking for something else entirely? Did you search for another writer or artist that I mentioned? Perhaps you were researching a severe mental condition for a graduate paper when you were directed here by AI to provide adequate evidence to support your otherwise unsupported thesis.

Whatever brings you here, dear reader, thanks for stopping by. Let's have some tea and wonder at the miracle that has united us in strange and uncommon communion. Maybe we'll stumble across other common ground and become fast friends. Or perhaps politics, religion, alcoholism, perversion, inadequate ventilation, poor cardiovascular health, and a general sense of malaise will drive us apart, even make us enemies in the grand dance that pretends to be life but is probably someone else's indie film.

we are here for a moment

we are here forever

we are here until we are not

we were here

weren't we?

Poor poems happen, and poets remain poorer even, yet it is the reader who suffers most.

I'm not sure why I'm still writing to you, unknown reader, save that I set out this evening to write something, and this is at least that. Terrible, really, but any port in a port cochere, as no one says with any regularity.

This isn't even me, really. I don't talk like this. I don't write like this. I'm from the Bronx, for fuck's sake, now by way of New Jersey, and no, I'm not lost. No more than anyone. I'm just here. For now. Until I'm not.

Perhaps this is something. Maybe this is how it starts again, how I unlock at least the basic ability to put something down. To write poorly is better than to not write at all, and to spew nonsense is at least as good as half of the self-published and vanity published crap out there, and better by far than anything AI has to say about writing or speaking or fucking or self-improvement.

Did you know Chat GPT will advise you on pretty much anything? Fucking terrifying.

And I suspect people are more likely to take its advice than they are that of their best friend, their parents, or their therapist. I mean, for one, it's more polished. For two, it's masterfully persuasive, feeding you what it somehow knows you want to hear. Probably because it has access to every thing anyone has ever put on the internet and we are all just not that different when push comes to shove. And what differences we do have can be easily categorized by an all-seeing artificial mind who has access to the whole of humanity and all our thoughts, art, history, complaints, addictions, perversions, and is unaffected by any of it in the way a shit is unaffected by the flies it spawns (attracts? - I'm unsure of the biologics.)

Anyway, my train has come to a convenient stop, and I'll be getting off here. Perhaps I'll see you in two years. Or maybe not. 

Summer writing challenge with Kristine Kathryn Rusch

 It's been a minute.

I just signed up for the summer writing challenge with Kristine Kathryn Rusch. I'm a couple of days late to the party - she started the challenge on June 5th - but that's fine. Just means I'll have to play catchup.

Long story short, I need to get back to writing daily, and Kris is very consistent with her word count. That's how you become a professional fiction writer, after all.

So from now until Wednesday, August 14th, I have to try and beat her total word count. That's almost ten weeks of writing every day. That's exactly what I need right now to help me get into a routine.

I haven't done much writing at all since my triple bypass last May. It was all I could do to get back to normal and adjust to the return to work in July. Now, that was almost 11 months ago. Seems like I'm ready.

I've been spending my time mostly on hobbies and work, with some friends and family for good measure. Nothing wrong with that, but a writing career it is not. This is a wonderful motivational opportunity to get back on the proverbial writing horse.

What counts? Consumable words.

What does that mean? Anything I write for public consumption. 

So, this blog counts. As does any fiction writing that I plan to submit or self-publish.

I'm guesstimating I'll need to average about 3000 words a day to win the challenge. The full challenge is 70 days, and I'm two days behind, so I have some catching up to do.

Kris wrote 2205 words on day 1. I have no idea what she did on day 2.

I wrote 0 words on day 1 and 2 combined, so I figure I'm 6000 words behind. At least.

I know 3000 words is more than 2205, but being a professional writer, I imagine Kris is going to pick up speed as she goes and be super consistent. I need to shoot high every day if I want to win.

It will be interesting to see her daily word counts. An education in craft and discipline for sure. 

And it will be fun and frustrating to try and exceed them.

I can't wait.

30 Days of Change: Day 1

 November 1st.

A day that fills the internet writing community with dread and excitement. 

The first day of NaNoWriMo.

For the uninitiated, NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month, the annual November sprint to 50,000 words where writers sign up (for free) and do their best to write a novel in thirty days.

I don't know how many of these I've signed up for over the years. Probably a dozen.

I do know how many I've finished.

None.

It's not strange that I've never finished a NaNo project. I'm not consistent, and it takes consistency to bang out 50,000 words in thirty days. I tend to write in fits and starts, and have more uncompleted projects than completed ones. 

I did have a solid year from April of 2021 through March of 2022 where I wrote fifty short stories and three short (40,000 word) novels. This was thanks largely to putting my money where my mouth is - I signed up for Dean Wesley Smith's short story and novel writing challenges. 

Something about paying to enter the challenge kept me more consistent and motivated than I'd ever been, and having concrete goals drove me to continue. I wrote the short stories mostly on Sundays, sometimes taking all morning and a good portion of the afternoon. 

I wrote the novels typically in the last two weeks before they were due. The longest took me thirteen days, and the shortest took me six. So yeah, I can write 40,000 words in six days, but I can't get 50,000 words in 30 days? Something is wrong here, eh?

I know what's wrong, though. I procrastinate. I lack discipline.

I find it easier to sprint through a project at the last minute than I do to commit to a daily writing routine.

This is a habit born of laziness, but driven by fear. When the stakes are highest, when my back is to the wall, I usually get done what I must.

But why do the stakes have to be so high?

This method of writing is exhausting. 

Heck, this method of doing anything is exhausting. It's much easier, and far more productive in the long term, to be consistent and get a little bit done every day, to take smaller pieces out of larger goals until the pieces accumulate to a whole.

Then, even if you want to increase your productivity, you spend a little more time every day, increasing slowly, until you reach your desired output.

Simple, right?

Apparently not. And I know I'm not alone. There are plenty of last minute sprinters out there, banging away on everything in their lives at the last possible moment. We did it with school assignments. We did it with college papers, and many of us were rewarded with A grades for our last minute, late night efforts, which did nothing but reinforce our procrastinatory ways.

We continue to do it with doctor's appointments, haircuts, weekend plans, finances, work, and just about anything you can list that would benefit from a regular schedule but which we, instead, do at the last possible minute.

This is a tough way to live a life, and it drives out partners crazy!

I've worked on my procrastination habit for years, and I've mostly overcome it where work is concerned. I've turned into a systemic, habitual animal when I walk through the doors of my 9 to 5, and the daily tasks that used to spread across my day are now often done in the first two hours, leaving me more time to devote to grander pursuits that have been hugely impactful on my effectiveness and salary.

But there are still some things, less urgent things, that elude my best efforts to systemize. I'm still chasing these small, less important but often more impactful tasks down at the end of the month or quarter. These are things I should schedule, but because they are not daily and routine, I let them come and go as they will and often find myself scrambling to complete them at the last minute.

New guitar, same old song.

Well, here I am on November 1st. I've signed up for another NaNoWriMo. And I'm signing up for my own personal challenge.

30 Days of Change: Systemizing my life for better productivity

For the next thirty days, I'm scheduling everything. I'm planning out my days, weeks, and the entire month. I'm leaving very little room for flexibility. I'm going to bear down on my priorities and get to work, and I'm going to do it in a way that eliminates procrastination and guess work as much as possible.

I'm aware that planning is a skill. That's good news. Great news, in fact!

Skills can be learned. 

I've shown I can learn to systemize the routine tasks of my work day. When I stick to that routine, I'm happier and far more productive at work than I've ever been. And even when it slips a little, I now have that stable model of routine to return to in order to refocus.

That's hugely valuable. My career has taken off in the last two years, and I see measurable, concrete results.

I want that for my whole life.

So, for the month of November, I'm going to be focused on setting up a system and sticking to it. I'm going to look beyond daily planning and work out not just daily routines, but weekly and monthly ones as well.

And every day, I'm going to tell you about the changes I'm making, the resistance I'm feeling, and the progress I'm making.

So what am I focusing on?

Well, there are four main areas I want to improve: Health, Work, Writing, Family and Friends.

How am I going to systemize and improve my quality of life in these four areas? And how am I going to eliminate procrastination from my life in the process?

The first change I made today was getting up earlier, and getting up with a purpose and a plan.

I normally wake up at 5 a.m. , walk the dogs, have some coffee, and read a little before breakfast. Sometimes I don't read, and instead spend time scrolling on Social Media. None of this, outside walking the dogs, is particularly productive. Enjoyable, but not productive.

Today, I woke up at 3 a.m.

I find that I can be very productive in the early morning when I want to be, which involves knowing what my goals are for the day and what my plan is, step by step, when I get out of bed.

I kept it simple today. I woke up at 3 a.m. with the intent to write.

I devised a simple morning schedule for myself, and I plan to stick to it for the entire month.

3 a.m. - 5 a.m. - Writing

5 a.m. - 5:30 a.m. - Walk the dogs

5:30 a.m. - 6: 30 a.m.  - Gym

6:30 a.m. - 7:30 a.m.  - Breakfast/Shower/Shave/Dress

7:30 a.m. - Leave for work

This morning schedule, done seven days a week, will lay the groundwork for a successful day, week, and month.

You will note that the morning routine addresses two of my priorities, Health and Writing, in a hugely impactful way.

Daily writing can only improve my consistent, quality, and productivity. And two hours to start each day provides a solid base on which to build a writing practice. And an hour at the gym each morning will have an immediate positive impact on my health.

I haven't even planned the rest of the day yet, never mind the week and month, and I've already addressed half of my priorities.

This morning, I got out of bed at 3, started a novel, wrote this blog, drank a full bottle of water,and have barely finished half a cup of coffee. Good start.

That's enough for today. It's time to walk the dogs.

See you tomorrow.

How to reset your writing goals for the rest of the year

It’s never too late to begin again.

Image by vecstock

 Have you fallen short of your writing goals for the year?

I have.

But it’s not too late to salvage the rest of the year and set yourself up for success in the New Year!

In fact, it’s the perfect time to stop worrying about what you didn’t accomplish and start focusing on what you can do.

Wherever you are, whatever you’ve done, you can seize the moment and commit to a new writing goal for the rest of the year. You can pick up where you left off on an unfinished project. Or make a clean start.

Even if you did nothing this year, you can take the time you have left, get your butt in the writing chair, your fingers on the keyboard, and start writing now.

You’ll be surprised what you can achieve.

What can you achieve?

Well, here are my personal writing goals for the rest of 2023. Depending on what you want to write and how much time you have available, your goals may vary.

But don’t be afraid to challenge yourself. You might be surprised what you can accomplish in a small chunk of time, and you might even find it easier to focus for the short term instead of taking on the whole year!

There are 98 days left in 2023, which works out to 14 weeks exactly.

First, I have a work in progress that needs about 30,000 words.

Second, I have a trilogy I’ve been wanting to write. Three 90,000 word manuscripts.

Third, I need to make sure I blog regularly. Two blogs a week at 500 words each and a third, 1000 word blog seems like a great start.

Fourth, I like to challenge myself to write a short story every week. That’s about 5000 words a week. Some weeks will be longer, some a bit shorter, but 5000 is a good average short story word count.

That means I intend to write 30,000 WIP words + 270,000 novel words+ 28,000 blog words + 70,000 short story words.

Total: 398,000 words. Let’s call it 400,000.

Divided by 98 days and we get 4081 words per day.

Multiple that by 7 days and we get 28,571 words per week. Let’s call it 30,000 words a week to make the math easy.

Weekdays, I have a full time job that takes 8–10 hours of my time. But I know I have about 3 hours a day to allocate to writing. I write about 1000 words an hour, so Monday through Friday I’ll write 3000 words a day. That accounts for 15,000 words, or half of my weekly goal.

That means I need to get 15,000 words on the weekend.

Well, I can stay up later on Friday nights, so I can get another 2000 words there.

Then, I can spend my Saturday afternoon, about 5 hours, writing, so that’s another 5000 words.

That leaves 8000 words for Sunday, which means eight hours of writing on Sunday. A full work day. But I’ll break it up into two or three, maybe even four sessions, depending on what else I have going on.

That’s 30,000 words a week, and 30 extra hours of work on top of my typical 45 hour work week. That might seem like a lot.

There are 168 hours in a week.

I’m committing 75 of them to work and writing.

And I sleep about 7 hours a night, or 49 hours a week.

So 168 total hours –75 hours of work and writing–49 hours of sleep still leaves me 44 hours a week!

I can still go to the gym (6 hours), go out on Saturday night (6 hours), have date night on Tuesdays (4 hours), movie night on Sundays (6 hours), and have 22 hours left over for commuting, reading, self-care, and general miscellaneous downtime.

I’m not recommending you try to write this much.

But I do recommend you examine how you spend your time, and imagine what you can do with your writing if you manage your time better and commit to getting your butt in seat more often.

You might be surprised at what you can accomplish if you eliminate distractions and get down to business.

Who knows? Maybe you’ll even finish that novel.

How to get more out of life - a plan for fulfillment

 

How to get more out of life

A plan for fulfillment

You’ve probably heard the phrase, “We all get the same twenty-four hours in a day.”

And it’s true.

But it’s a troublesome phrase, causing more problems than it solves.

Here’s why.

The idea that we all have the same amount of time in the day makes us focus on what we aren’t doing, rather than what we are.

Instead of making the most of those twenty-four hours, we end up worrying that we aren’t doing enough. 

In a world where so many people humble brag on social media all day, every day, sharing their accomplishments and urging others to do more and be more, it’s becoming increasingly hard to prioritize what we value over all the noise.

The never-ending search for likes and views has warped us to the point where we aren’t even sure what we enjoy anymore. Instead, we get caught up in the modern version of Keeping Up with the Joneses, focusing on the things that generate the most feedback.

Yes, I’m aware that I’m writing an article on a social media site, and that I hope lots of people read it, enjoy it, and get something out of it. No irony intended.

We’ve become a society that values other people’s opinions far more than we value our own, largely because it’s damn difficult to sort out what it is we actually do value. 

The constant marketing and social bombardment we subject ourselves to has changed the way we function collectively, but also individually. And the marketers and content creators have gotten so good at their craft, we may not even be aware our perceptions and values are in constant flux.

But there’s a way to combat the growing pressure, a way to restore your sense of self and reconnect with your loves, your likes, your dreams, and your desires.

Don’t worry. I’m not going to tell you to delete all your social media. 

That’s like trying to stop a tidal wave with a single sandbag. 

Social media is a part of our lives now, and it’s not going anywhere. In fact, it’s just going to become a bigger and bigger part of our daily existence with each passing day. Trying to deny that is a waste of time and energy, and you might be depriving yourself of valuable tools.

Tools that enable a whole new level of human connection, so long as we are conscious of how we utilize them.

But in order to understand just how we should be using social media in our lives, we first have to figure out what we want our lives to be in the first place.

What do you want your life to be?

This is a question of priorities, but also of time management.

See, we really do all get the same amount of time in each day. And we do get to decide how we spend it.

But most people are trying to do far too much, and as a result, the quality of their lives is suffering.

The first step in restoring your quality of life it to establish some priorities. So go ahead, make a list of all the things you want and need to do every day, every week, every month. Every year if you are feeling ambitious (or just have that special sort of planning-based OCD).

You’ll probably come up with a list of twenty, thirty, maybe even fifty things you want and need to do. Go ahead. Write them all down. Everything you can think of, no matter how trivial. 

If you spend time on it, or want to spend time on it, write it down.

Good.

Now cross out all but five.

Five things

See, you can’t do twenty, thirty, or fifty?!? things and be fulfilled. You’re just to damn busy. You don’t have the time to fully enjoy anything!

So cut the list down to just five.

These should be the absolute most important five things in your life.

For example, when I cut my list down, I’m left with:

• health
• friends and family
• writing
• travel
• giving back

I took out things like getting a promotion at work, making more money, saving more money, playing video games, staying up to date on all the great Star Wars shows on Disney Plus, and reading every one of the 100 greatest books ever written.

The five things I have left are the absolute most important things in my life. 

They are the things I can’t live without. They are the things that make my life better and more meaningful, and the things that make up my core identity.

Not just who I am, but who I really want to be.

They are my priorities, and they come more or less in the order I listed them here.

I could live without every other thing on my list. And believe me, it was a long list. I was way over fifty.

But I don’t have time for fifty. 

I only have time for five.

Now, that doesn’t mean you’ll never do anything else but these five things with your time. And your five things will probably differ from mine, at least a little. 

They should. These are the five most important things in your life. 

You don’t have to be productive with them. Your final five might include reading, watching television, playing video games, going to bingo, cooking, building a business, or even making a fortune.

What’s important is that those are the five things you deem most important. The things you are most passionate about. The things you enjoy the most.

If you focus on those five things eighty to ninety percent of the time you have available, the quality of your life will increase exponentially.

And you’ll be amazed at how little you miss all those extra little things you used to do, things you considered important. Vital, even, to your day.

But they weren’t. They aren’t.

They were just noise.

They were obstacles getting in the way of enjoying your life.

They were creating STRESS.

Don’t believe me? Give it a try.

It won’t be easy, but you don’t have to be perfect. Heck, give up one thing month from the list. Take a couple of years to get down to the core five if you want.

Whatever it takes, it will be worth it.

I promise.

If you enjoyed this story and want to read more about life, goals, and writing, please don’t forget to follow. Thank you.

The 4 things you need to be a great writer (I bet you already have them...)

 What do you need to be a great writer? That’s the question, isn’t it? And every aspiring writer wants the answer.

The truth is, all our combined Google searches cannot hope to answer that question.

Why not?

Because every writer is different. What works for someone else probably won’t work for you.

That’s not to say you can’t find a method that works for you by learning what other writers do, but even the best-sounding writing routine by your absolute favorite writer is probably not a good fit for you.

It might be a good place to start, though. If you’re really stuck, mired in worry about doing it wrong, then anywhere you begin is a good place.

You can’t do it wrong, by the way.

But that perfect routine you copied from someone else will only work for you if you're willing to be flexible. You’re going to develop your own routine through trial and error, and if you're stuck following someone else’s routine, you might not discover your own.

What don’t you need?

You don’t need a fancy laptop or a dedicated writing space. I’m writing this on a four year old laptop sitting in my reading chair. The laptop rests on a $15 lap desk I bought on Amazon. My wife is on the couch eight feet away from me watching TV, and the volume is loud enough that I can hear it clearly over my headphones.

I’ve written on my phone while waiting at the doctor’s office for an appointment. I’ve written on a piece of printer paper during my break at work. I’ve written poems on napkins in McDonalds.

And I wrote one novel on this laptop while sitting on the majestic deck of a rental house on top of a mountain in North Carolina. (That was a great week for me, and a terrible week for my wife. Sorry, babe.)

If you think you need a new computer, the perfect notebook, or a writing retreat to unlock your creativity, you’re procrastinating.

All of those things can be a nice addition to your writing practice, but they aren’t at all necessary.

So, what do you need?

1. Time to write.
2. Something to write with.
3. The willingness to sit down and write during that time on that thing.
4. Lot’s of practice.

That’s it!

Everything else is an excuse not to write.

So grab something to write with, pick a time, and get started!

And don’t stop, no matter what. Keep coming back day after day. It’s the only way to get better, and better is the path to great.

If you miss a day, that’s okay. But try not to miss two in a row. And definitely don’t miss three.

The longer you go without writing, the harder it is to get started again. So keep the momentum going as best you can with the time you have.

Stop worrying. Stop being afraid. And definitely stop waiting for inspiration.

Start writing right now, and let all the worry and fear go.

You want to know what it takes to be a great writer?

No, you don’t.

You want to know if you have what it takes.

Since you're reading this, I’m willing to bet the answer is yes.

If you enjoyed this article, please follow me for more on writing, goals, and life.

Five ways to increase your writing productivity

Do you write as much as you want?

I can never seem to find as much writing time as I'd like, and I struggle to hit my weekly word count goals regularly.

When I write at all, that is.

There are an abundance of excuses to not write readily available. 

From days jobs, to family commitments, to the need to clean the entire house, reorganize your sock drawer, and find more time for reading, video games, and Netflix (all, you may notice, are not writing), it's easy enough to avoid writing altogether. 

If you want to grow as a writer and build a portfolio of work, no matter what your chosen writing form, you need to put the time in and get the words down.

As an expert at finding reasons not to write, I thought I would share some tried and true ways to help you find the time and increase your word count. 

Whatever sort of writer you want to be, these five tips will increase your word count as soon as you implement them.

1. Get up early.

There's no better time to write than the early morning. 

It's quiet and very few people are up and about, which means the potential interruptions and conflicts are almost nonexistent. Sure, there might be an occasional emergency to deal with, but those should (hopefully) be few and far between. 

You have the most control of your time before the rest of the world has woken up.

You may believe you won't be able to write as soon as you get out of bed. But, with a little practice, you'll soon find the words flowing easily from your fingers onto the screen (or paper, though writing longhand is a great way to derail your productivity. But that's a subject for another day...)

I do some of my best writing well before dawn. 

I've found that waking up at 3 a.m. gives me a couple of uninterrupted hours to write, and that fiction flows especially well before my conscious mind is fully awake. I don't even need coffee! 

And let me tell you, there's no better feeling than getting a couple thousand words down before you start your day and get worn out by work, life, and the general feeling that the world is on fire. (It is jsut a feeling, right?)

Want to curb your anxiety over not finding the time to write today? Get up an hour or two before you have to and get to typing! You'll find a feeling of wellbeing and freedom follows you through the day knowing you've already gotten your word count goal in.

If you do choose to wake up early and write though, it really helps if you...

2. Know what you are going to write about.

This may seem obvious, but it's where a lot of writer's get hung up. Some people call it writer's block, but I've learned it's just poor planning.

Since you've decided to get up early and get in the habit of daily writing, you may as well head into the morning prepared. There's nothing more discouraging for a writer than sitting down to the blank screen and searching for the first word, then giving up and going back to bed. Or worse, getting on an early morning cleaning spree.

The first day will be the toughest, so have a good idea of what you want to write about before you go to bed. When starting a new project, whether it's an article, chapter, or brand new story, I like to set up the document the night before. 

Once you've decided what you'll be writing about, open the blank document you'll be working on and type in the title. It doesn't have to be the perfect title, just the first one that comes to mind. 

Even better if you have an opening line in mind. Type it! That way, when the morning comes and you roll out of bed groggy and wishing you'd slept in, you'll sit down in your writing chair, open the doc, and find the creative energy from last night infusing you with inspiration!

If you are returning to a work in progress, that's easier. 

Use the old trick, oft attributed to Ernest Hemingway, and stop each writing session in the middle of a sentence. It's much easier to pick up where you left off mid-sentence than to start a fresh paragraph or chapter. Just like hot do eating champion Joey Chestnut would tell you, momentum is key. He'd also say you should...

3. Take small bites.

This is crucial. Don't try to write it all in one go, unless it's a very short piece, say 1500 words or less. 

Even then, take frequent breaks. A five minute break every half hour goes a long way to keeping your creative energy high and the words flowing.

Even better, don't try to block out hours of time to write. 

It's hard to find a free hour in our busy days, never mind two or three. I used to sabotage myself by only writing when I had two or more uninterrupted hours to commit. The result was predictable. I barely wrote at all!

Write for fifteen minutes here and there when time allows. Once you get it out of your head that you need hours and start looking for small windows of free time, you'll find that you can write anytime, anywhere. And the quality doesn't suffer.

Once I adopted the mindset that I could write no matter where I was, I found I could get down a paragraph while waiting on line at the grocery store or waiting in the doctor's office. If I have five minutes free, I'll get the next few sentences down. 

I write on my phone almost every day, and while it isn't quite as satisfying as sitting down for a good hour on my laptop, let me assure you, those five and ten minute spurts add up at the end of the week. Get in the habit of writing anywhere and anytime you have five to fifteen minutes and you'll see a few thousand extra words every week. 

And that, my fellow writers, is incredibly satisfying.

4. Forget perfection.

This kind of fits with the last tip, but it's a monster of epic proportions that deserves far more than the time I'll give it here.

We all want to write wonderfully, and I'm not advocating you strive for anything less. 

But I do want to warn you, we writers are the worst judges of our own writing. We are so damn hard on ourselves that it can be tempting to give up writing altogether.

Instead, just do the best you can and trust your creative voice. Your toolbox as a writer will only grow with frequent practice, and even when you gain excellence in the craft, you'll still think most of what you write isn't worth reading.

You're wrong!

I'm not saying to treat everything you write as a masterpiece worthy of unending praise and everflowing acclaim, not to mention monetary compensation. 

What's I'm saying is, the best thing you can do to become a better write is to write. A lot. And an attitude of perfection is the enemy of your growth as a writer.

Instead, let it go. Don't worry about how you feel about your own writing. Heck, don't even read it if you can manage. 

My own process is to get the words down the best I can, and to take frequent breaks. 

When I come back from a break, I'll read what I wrote the last session (this is easy if you keep your sessions short) and edit as I go.

And I rarely look at it again!

That's right. I try to write the best, cleanest copy I can, get it right the first time out, review and tweak every five hundred words or so, and always keep moving forward. This applies to novels, short stories, articles, and even important emails. 

When it's done, it's done.

Chances are, when you go back over and over again, you beat the hell out of some pretty decent writing. 

Often, you'll be taking what makes your writing fun and unique, your voice, and slaughtering it down to the blandest version of itself.

Your an artist, damnit! Let the creative voice do it's job. There are enough critics out there (failed writers, the lot of them!) without you tearing yourself down. 

These four tips will go a long way, but none of them will do you a lick of good if you don't do one specific thing as often as you can stand. Get your...

5. Butt in seat!

There's no better way to produce more words than to spend more time in the writing chair, fingers on the keys, in more or less constant motion. 

Nothing will do you as much good as sitting down and writing the next sentence!

Seriously, sit your butt in the writing chair. Don't wait for the right time, and never, ever wait for inspiration. 

If you're cleaning the house for the third time this week, inspiration is likely to fly over your head and look for someone else, someone with their fingers on the keyboard.

Stories want to be told, and they will find those writers with their butts in the writing chair. 

Seriously, have you ever thought of a great premise for a story or article but not gotten around to writing it? Or finishing it?

And have you then seen a very similar story or article go on to be a huge success?

I've had it happen to me. No one stole my ideas, because I never got them down on paper. But there have been a few times when something I thought about writing turned up as an article, novel, or even major motion picture!

Ideas are alive, and they are out there in the world waiting for someone to capture them and write them down. Don't let you next idea become someone else's Academy Award!

If you only take one of these ways to increase your writing productivity, make it the last one. Nothing else will elevate your word count, not to mention your craft, as much as consistently getting your butt in seat!

Don't forget to follow for more writing advice, tips, and an honest look at a writer going from procrastination to publication.