For My Paid Subscribers: More on Building Writing Stamina

While you’re building stamina to write, you have to know when you’re tapped out. When you feel like you can’t go on, when you're completely drained and you can’t focus, don’t shove yourself around. When I reach the stage of diminishing returns, I take a hot tub or I go for a walk. I let my mind wander and often, a phrase comes to mind that fits into place and encourages me to go back to the computer and keep writing. If I have something else to do and I can't get back to work right away, I make sure to write down my thoughts so I don't lose them before I enter them into the text.

Everyone has different experiences of how they write:

Horror master, Stephen King says, It’s about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy.

On the polar opposite, Goth author, Anne Rice says, Writers write about what obsesses them. You draw those cards. I lost my mother when I was 14. My daughter died at the age of 6. I lost my faith as a Catholic. When I’m writing, the darkness is always there. I go where the pain is.