The challenge isn’t in trying to write when your circumstances back you. The challenge isn’t in trying to find the time, the opportunity, the inspiration or the drive, when you’re in the mood.

When your geared up on coffee, had a couple of glasses of red, or sitting by the window on a rainy day, your muse will come. In fact, in those instances, your muse will be waiting for you to jump on the writing train. The words will flow and the ideas will spring to mind faster than your fingers have the time to get them out. This is me, most of the time.

The challenge comes when you don’t have a 1 hour block (or 2, or 3 hours, however you work) to get into a real writing flow. The challenge comes when you’re tired, when you’re sick. When you’re just not feeling like it, when the ideas fail you. The biggest one for me, is when I’m sad. Anger drives me, frustration gets me writing furiously, but sadness…. This is a hard obstacle between me and my writing.

But I remind myself, this separates the real writers from the occasional writers. And I don’t want to be ‘occasional.’ I want to be there, on cue, always, showing up.

Besides, if I rely on the unpredictability of Melbourne weather, those rainy spells only really last for 5 minutes at a time, so yeah.

Write for life.