As most of you know, last year a friend and I decided, stupidly, to write a book series. It wasn't entirely stupid. I mean, the books are fun, people seem to enjoy them, and being Smoky Lynx occasionally is a blast. I certainly wouldn't want to be her all the time, but she's a delight in small doses. The stupid part is, we thought it'd be cute to write book one and release it almost immediately and then announce to America and the world that books two, three, and four would be released in the next nine months. We cute. If you've ever written a book, you'll immediately see the error of our ways. It's an INSANE schedule. Absolutely bonkers. And I would never recommend anyone try to take it on. We've made it work; book two released on time, book three is wrapping up on February 2nd, and book four is outlined. Loosely outlined, but still outlined.

So, what's the problem? The problem is no free weekends and the occasional fourteen hour day. We have seven more books in mind. Seven. Because we're idea factories with the attention span of hummingbirds. It's a lot. So, what are we going to do differently? Well, we're going to write every day. My new adventure in writing is to write at least a thousand words a day on one of our seven books. A thousand words feels like a lot, but it really isn't. I mean, my average blog is five hundred words. So, two blogs worth of words. Sometimes, it's easy peasy lemon squeezey. Other times it's hard, hard, lemon difficult. So, to all you aspiring writers out there, just write. Not all the words will be great. I mean, some of my words are "hard, hard, lemon difficult"; I'm not shooting for Shakespeare level, I'm just trying to get in the habit.

Writing, just like going to the gym - which I never do - is all about habits. Set aside time to write. Get yourself a dedicated writing space. Set a word count goal. Whatever it takes. Writing is all about confidence. The more you do it, the easier it will become. Before you know it, you have a book! It may not be a good book. In fact, it likely won't be. No shade, just the truth. That's where editors come in. It's like Stephen King says, "To write is human, to edit is divine." So, don't worry about that, just set the goal. And crush it. Every day. That's my plan anyway.

#newyearsresolutions