Staying at it

Now that my third mystery novel with Mercury Press has gone to press, I’m working on a fourth.

This time, I decided to try to do the first draft at about 1,000 words a days. This works well, most days, except for those days when I don’t get at it.

It makes writing more like regular work, which I actually enjoy, since it should be.

What I can’t believe, after all this time, are the distractions. Half the time, I feel as I used to, when I smoked. Except this time, it isn’t the urge for nicotine. It’s the urge to do anything else except sit in the chair and write … get something to eat, call somebody, play electronic poker, doodle, go to the bathroom, make a hot chocolate, eat something (did I mention that already?), surf the Internet.

Almost 25,000 words of a first draft.