I’m writing my third book and decided to retreat to a beach house in Duck, NC. The isolation has helped me to focus on why I’m here – to write.
As inspiration, I re-read Stephen King’s book On Writing. It’s a tremendous book and it covers the essential ingredients in good writing without getting weighed down with unnecessary rules. One point, in particular, that impressed me was the need for discipline. If you’re going to be good at anything, you need to spend time on it or you’ll just stay in a place of mediocrity. Stephen King writes 2,000 words per day, 365 days per year. By doing that, he gets better (even though he’s already dang good) and he works the craft.
That’s what it means to do it well.