Write every day.

The authors all give excellent reasons why writing every day is a Good Thing. It builds habit. It ensures you have some time writing. The skill of writing comes from practice, like any other skill. (Of course, I don't practice my guitar, either.) Especially for busy people, carving out a little time each day means you can make progress towards a work-in-progress even during crunch times.

It sounds so simple. Yet, like too many striving writers, I didn't do it.

There's always a reason. I work for a living. My clients tend to want my attention. After all, that's why they pay me.

Work comes first.

Home and family is right up there, too. And social obligations keep popping up. My excuse last week was the time I spent critiquing for my writer's group. That's the dues I pay for all the effort they put into helping me. My health (and weight!) require that I go to the gym regularly and exercise on my own on days I don't go.

It all adds up to me having too little time to actually accomplish something useful like reworking a complete chapter.

Just recently, I pitched my novel to an editor and was invited to send it in. Once I got over the shakes, I rabidly started in on the edits from my writer's group that I hadn't entered. With this tight deadline, I spend all my free time on my writing.

And I discovered another reason why writing every day actually helps the writer too busy to write.

Even fifteen minutes spent reviewing the Work-In-Progress keeps the story in my head. When I wait for large blocks of time to write, I can go days before I revisit my story. By that time, I've forgotten where I was, what I was going to do next. During the off time, I've spent little if any time ruminating over the story. It becomes a stranger to whom I must introduce myself all over again.

Now that I'm writing every day, though, I keep the story with me at all times, fresh and vibrant. My muse, usually a silent and recalcitrant creature, is constanty whispering in my ear. When I do sit down to write, even for just a fifteen-minute session, I'm full of things to do in those fifteen minutes. My mind is writing even when I do not.