Successful writers who give advice to aspiring ones tend to agree on one thing.  You need to write every day.  That means putting aside some time where you make words hit the page.  Never mind if it’s crap.  That bound to happen sometimes.  Your muse will take the occasional day off.  You, on the other hand, must not.

That is a daunting challenge.  It’s much easier to look the part of the writer.  Stand at the top of a cliff overlooking the ocean with your collar turned up and the sea breeze wafting through your hair.  Or if you’re less outdoorsy, exhibit bad posture and glare at the world with literary disapproval.

It seems like it would be  much easier to just sit down and write.  Well, it isn’t.  Harlan Ellison said “I write because I cannot stop,” but he is either the exception or completely full of shit.

During the time I was migrating Poison Spur to its new server, I didn’t write anything.  It would have been the perfect opportunity for me to churn out a bunch of stuff, have enough material to pick and choose what to post and even (gasp) have a backlog.  Like most opportunities, I squandered this one as well.

The worst of it is that I’ve lost my momentum and need to get it back.  Maybe a variation on Ellison’s words, “I write and I must not stop,” would be more helpful.