Welcome to the first of my weekly "Writing Week" posts. I'm going to try to do these each week in case they help inspire other writers. I track my daily output on my Google calendar. Each day I aim to write at least 100 words on my novel (I write those by hand in my Master Notebook ) and to transcribe that work into Scrivener where it waits for the big edits that will come when this draft of the book is complete. According to Google, here's what this week looked like: Sunday

My writing practice is not just about putting words on the page. In order for me to be a creative person, I have discovered that my daily writing practice has to involve the following things: Writing my morning pages Writing a minimum of 100 words on my current project Reading at least 25 pages of a novel Going for a walk One of those things is not like the other -- or is it? My morning pages help me organize my brain, and shake the dust out. My writing minimum ensures I make

I do a lot of my best work looking like this: That's how I look first thing in the morning, on my way up the stairs for my first cup of coffee.    I take that cup of coffee straight to my desk, grab my master notebook out of my house purse , and write my morning pages, every single day. And yes, really, when I'm half awake, that's where the sausage gets made.   Let's unpack this a little bit.    Morning pages are a practice promoted by Julia Cameron in The Artist's Way .  The

I am very lucky to have a home office that I love -- but I also have four kids and a husband who constantly knocks at the door and a very busy run around schedule and sometimes the "butt in seat" recurring task list to get my writing done doesn't happen in the afore-mentioned seat. And I'm here to tell you, when you have to get those words on the page, you have to do that, anywhere and everywhere you are. Carry your notebook everywhere, and/or liberally deploy the notes app o

One of my greatest challenges as a writer is capturing the ideas, the notes, the scenes, the perfect lines of dialogue that all seem to occur to me when I am NOT at my desk. I have tried all sorts of things to corral the madness. Little notebooks all over the house, in the car -- but then those notes have to get transferred to the MASTER notebook. Texting myself -- same transfer issue, and honestly I'd forget I'd sent myself a text. Emailing myself -- same problem. You all ge