Writers write. Right?

Ask just about anyone what the number one rule of writing is, and you’ll hear this.

From Ray Bradbury, to my inspiration Stephen King, authors who get many books written tell you the same thing.

The key to writing, as Red Dwarf recently mentioned, is BICHOK (Butt In Chair, Hands On Keyboard).

Writers write.

But sometimes, life can become so complicated, stressful, engrossing and time consuming that writing falls by the wayside.

Even for those who have been writing for years, publishing books. Even for those who’s writing is their stress relief and they’d never imagine not writing because it’s not only just so important to them, writing is part of that person.

Then what happens?

A writer isn’t writing 😦

The all-knowing “They” say it takes about a month for a habit, good or bad, to form in your life.

Writing, starting or getting back to it, is at the core a habit. BICHOK doesn’t happen all on it’s own.

So, after too much time away, I’m getting back in the saddle.

Even though I love writing, getting back to it on a daily basis is a struggle. I’m having to deliberately sit down with the intention to write a minimum word count.

When writing my last book (Magicstorm HoaV #4), I could easily do my daily word count of a few thousand words a day. The words weren’t always easy, but the dedicated time and using it every day was just part of my habits.

Now, I’ve realized that I need to be more reasonable with myself. I’m asking me and my muse for a minimum of 1 hour a day, and 1000 words. Once I can attain that easily (and in a few weeks, the kids will be back in school so the time at least will be easier to find) then I can increase it and work on getting back to my pre-life/stress/suckage that I used to have.

How about you? Do you BICHOK every day? How do you make sure writing every (or most every) day is one of your habits?