Now, almost any writing book you read will give you such trite truisms as:

Get up an hour earlier.
Take a notebook with you on your commute.
Write after the kids have gone to bed.
Keep a small notebook with you to jot down interesting characters and ideas.

Have to tell you: most of that is nonsense. Well, okay, yes, you can get up an hour earlier and write then, if you're a morning person. But that's stupid. You already know that. You don't need a writing coach to tell you that.

This sort of advice simply doesn't get to the core of the issue and it does you, the budding writer, an inordinate disservice. And seriously -- if you're old enough to read a novel, much less write one, you can figure that sort of stuff out.

My advice is much simpler. Make time.

The truth is that making a living as a writer is not easy. It is difficult to hold down a full time job, raise kids, clean house and play with dogs and find time to write. So something's got to give.

If you put your writing first, the rest of the stuff will fall into place. Insist that your family help out. Simply ignore them when they don't. Learn to live with a sloppy house. Don't take on overtime at your day job. Give up community service activities WHILE YOU'RE getting started.

Here's another truth: You can't have it all. No way. Not enough hours in the day. If you're going to do this, make the hard choices necessary to have time to write. If you don't respect your calling and your talent, who will?

Oh, and that routine about carrying a small notebook with you to jot down interesting characters, etc? More nonsense. Real writers have that stuff flooding in nonstop. It's a matter of filtering that's important, not the noticing interest characters and scenes. Honestly, that's the sort of PIC that makes me ill. (Precious Inner Child, if you skipped that article.)