You have to know what you want in life in order to attain it.

At 14-years-old I wanted to be a writer but was rebuffed by my father. “You can’t make money doing that.” He said.

Well, I may not be making money, yet, but I’m closer than I was a year ago stuck in a dead-end job that left me hating my life at the end of the day.

In the past year, I’ve written four short stories and one novel and I’m trying to get a novel on Amazon by the end of October.

Here is what I’ve learned in the last year of writing full-time:

• You must create a schedule for yourself and stick to it.
• You have to write every day, even if that writing is a blog post, you must write.
• You must have a damn outline. This is the biggest for me. It gives me a path to the finish line. Before I was only writing and not finishing, if I have an endpoint, I get there.
• You must go it alone sometimes. There are times you must lock yourself away to get writing done. People you love will have to understand that. If they don’t, they’re not worthy of your attention.
• It will be harder than you think. You must push through those moments when the words suck and you hate the story. You must find yourself in the words and never leave until they’re done.
• You must have a creative outlet other than writing. It doesn’t matter if it’s photography, painting or anything else, but you must have another place to create or you can get fried.

I could put more than this and it might be too many but in the end the most important is that you get words on the page.

If you’re not getting words on the page, you’re not a write, period.

Peace,

Brian