Ten Commandments for the Happy Writer

From the blog of Nathan Bransford, Literary Agent:

Ten Commandments for the Happy Writer.

Here’s the one I always have trouble with; it’s the part in the emphasis (which I added):

5. Don’t Quit Your Day Job. Quitting a job you need to pay the bills in order to write a novel is like selling your house and putting the proceeds into a lottery ticket. You don’t have to quit your job to write. There is time in the day. You may have to sacrifice your relaxation time or sleep time or reality television habit, but there is time. You just have to do it.

Distractions are my biggest problem. The occasional Good Eats episode, my sandbox server environment, games, other hobbies… I have to force myself to write. It needs to be part of my day. Still working on that.