Write Like an Eagle

What are your writing habits like? Do you wait for a break in your schedule before you sit down at your computer? Does the mood need to hit you? Do you only write when the moon is in the Seventh House and Jupiter aligns with Mars? (If you’re too young to get the reference, Google.) If any of these describe your writing habits, you aren’t writing like an eagle.

Eagles don’t sit in one place, waiting for their next meal to be delivered to them. Instead, they go out hunting. Deliberately. With purpose. Regularly.

This is how we need to write, like an Eagle.

Life is busy.  And, as I’ve pointed out before, being busy is a terrific excuse for not writing. If we aren’t deliberate is setting aside time to write regularly – and by that I mean more like daily than weekly or monthly – we won’t do it. And if by some miracle, you do find the time to write sporadically, you aren’t likely to improve very rapidly, if at all.

Here’s the tricky part. Eagles have terrific incentive to hunt; they either hunt or go hungry and eventually starve to death. Unless we make our living writing, we aren’t likely to have quite the same motivation. Personally, when I don’t write, I don’t get hungry. In fact, not only do I not get hungry for food, but my hunger to write also diminishes. Conversely, when I do write, I find I can’t get enough; I crave it. And when that happens, it’s easier for me to make the time to write. You too?

So get to it. Take that first step. Make the time in your schedule. Be deliberate. Write. Because if you don’t, the days will go by, and you’ll wonder why the right words never come.