Every writer hears this sentence when they tell people what they do, "I'm going to write a book some day."

The truth is, that day will never come if people don't sit down and do it.  Having written is wonderful.  Writing takes effort.  As the mother of four teens, my life is constantly turned upside down by their schedules and I've found that unlike when they were young -- and there was NAP time.  There is no such break for the mother of teens.

After you drop them off at school, there are bills to pay, laundry to do and naturally, the constant grocery shopping.

This week I'm reworking my schedule so that I can get everything done like I used to.  For example, Wednesdays used to be errand day.  I didn't run errands on other days, it could wait so that I only had to leave the house once.  It can STILL wait.

For me, there needs to be set hours for writing time.  My brain doesn't turn on until about ten a.m., so I can get a lot done in those hours before that. But I'll often set a timer to make sure that time is ONLY for writing.

On Focus.  It can be hard to know WHAT to work on when you have multiple projects going on -- Personally, I need to set my schedule the night before and know what needs to be accomplished the following day.  It can feel really great if you make a list and cross things off as they're done.  (In the Scrivener program, you can set up word count goals and that helps me a lot!)

Deadlines.  As a writer, you must set your own deadline.  Even if you have a publisher telling you when something is due, you must plan for all of the things that WILL go wrong to meet that deadline and plan accordingly.

Once you're out of your routine, getting back to it is doubly hard, so start your schedule and stick to it!  I'm giving myself the sermon, hoping you might benefit from it as well.  I wrote nearly 40 books with four kids under six at one point.  You can do this.  I can do this.