Don’t start your writing day because you have to do it. Don’t think of it as a drudgery. Don’t think of it as something you have to do.
Write because you want to find out how the hero is going to get out of the mess you got him into. This may take a couple of rewrites but the reader will never guess what’s coming.
Write because your hero has become to cocky, to arrogant, thinks he can do anything. It’s time to put him into his place. It’s time to make his life miserable. It’s time for a little story tension. Make that a whole lot of tension. If it’s interesting for him, it’s interesting for you, and for the reader.
Write because the sun is out and it’s feels like the day you’re going to write an extra 1000 words. The birds are singing and the words are going to flow.
Write because it’s dark, cloudy, stormy. Write like the weather; write dark, write stormy, and depressed or write violent. Every story needs a good lightening bolt or even a couple. Write the ‘through the tunnel of death’ part of the hero’s journey of your story. Skip ahead and write the dark part of the book. Incorporate a dark cloudy day into your story. Incorporate a storm, lightening, high wind. Make your hero miserable. Write how the weather makes it worst for the hero. It’s her wedding day and it’s storming and she can’t put off the wedding.
Smile and write because it’s storming out side and your in a coffee shop. The shop has to sweep the floors, clean the tables, wash the dishes and heat the place so you’re warm. You got it made. You’re not sitting shoulder to shoulder at a metal bench next to 300 other workers, putting the same little part in the same place on a circuit board hour after hour, day after day, but your heroine is there and does that and will do anything to get out of there (or so she thinks).
Write to be with your story friends, the heroine and villains of your story. Yes, villains can be friends, good friends.
Don’t write because it’s on your schedule, it’s your practice, or your habit. Write because the world wants your story, it’s begging for your story. Write because of the story, your story. It has to be told, by you, and your way.
Stay strong, write on.
Professor Hyram Voltage