Discipline!
I occasionally peruse the Writer’s Digest website (www.writersdigest.com) and happened across a great article titled, “10 Disciplines for Fiction Writers.” In the wake of yesterday's poignant “how much and when” question, it was much appreciated. You should read the whole thing - I recommend it - but this is my rough interpretation:
-Write early and write often. Write first thing in the morning AFTER (or with) my coffee and BEFORE I can make excuses. And, write every day.
-Just write! The devil may be in the details, but he’s also trying to distract me with them. In other words, I need to stop obsessing about commas and colons and work only to crank out relatively lucid sentences/paragraphs/chapters each time I sit down to the keyboard.
-Quota. Set a daily or weekly (or both) word count goal and stick to it – oh, and record it somewhere to document progress.
-Writing Wednesday. (Or Typin’ Tuesday, Fabulist Friday, or whatever) Dedicate one day a week to writing and nothing else!
There are many more gems in the below link (including taking walks to keep mind and body supple), but this is certainly enough to get me started…or give me a “A kick in the rear!”