Robert Heinlein was a science fiction writer. He published over 40 novels and hundreds of short stories. He had five business rules he followed throughout his career.
1. A professional writer must write.
2. A professional writer must finish what they write.
3. A professional writer must refrain from rewriting except to editorial demand (and only if you agree with the editor according to Harlan Ellison)
4. A professional writer must put their story on the market.
5. A professional writer must keep it on the market until it sells.
Robert Heinlein sold the vast majority of every story he ever wrote. I want to say he sold everything he ever wrote, but I think there might have been one or two stories that he decided not to publish.
As for me, my most common stumbling block is rule 2. I have over 100 stories started that I never got around to finishing.
For me, there’s something about staring at a blank screen that leads to a sensation similar to stage fright. I really can’t explain it any better than that. And I’m not sure why the “page fright” occurs.
Add to that that I haven’t written two days consistently in a row (other than this challenge) since my dad got really sick before losing his battle with cancer.
That’s not meant to be an excuse. Just observing facts.
I didn’t do any writing yesterday except for the blog post. Hopefully I’ll get some writing time in today so I can start building the habit of writing consistently.