The Art of War for Writers by James Scott Bell

I picked this book up on a whim a few months back wanting to get more books on writing. As I've discussed earlier, I've found most of these books to be trash, so I am always skeptical. I am so thankful I picked this book up! It was my intention of only reading 10 pages of this book a day, but the truth is, I found that it was hard to put it down. Easily five stars out of five.

You know something is decent when you can get at least one piece of good advice from it; however, I was getting something great every few days. The first 80 percent of the book goes into details on writing your novel and the final 20 percent talks about agents, editors, and publishers. I found this last part the most fascinating as this part of the book industry has always been a little hazy to me. Sure, I'm not at the point yet of looking for an agent, but I now have a list of guidelines to go off so that I will know when the time is right to start searching.

"Writing is, ultimately, a matter of cheeks on chair and words on page. You must develop a certain amount of discipline and as much of a schedule as you can." (Bell, 247)

James Scott Bell

How true is that! You'll never write your book if you don't sit down and right. You'll never get better if you don't practice. I have found that scheduling works really well for me, because if I make a plan, I really intend to follow through with it. This past week, after a nice discussion with a friend about how to better manage my time, I realized I could still do everything, I was just making excuses to not novel write. I have the idea. I want to do it. But I wasn't. Well, that has officially changed. For now, I'm only writing for 30 minutes a day, but:




- I have a designated time to write.
- If my husband is home I will put my airpods in and listen to instrumental music (mainly the LOTR soundtrack).
- I write in the dark with only the light of my laptop on.
- I put my phone on silent and turn my wifi off so I'm not even tempted to browse the internet
- I set my timer
- I write.

Nothing is overly difficult. I never regret doing it after the 30 minutes are over. I do; however, already look forward to the days where I shut my alarm off after thirty minutes and keep writing. Once novel writing daily becomes an everyday habit, I have a feeling the time will continue to expand. And that is exciting.

No matter what I do, I plan to: "Respect the craft of writing. Be in awe when you sit down at the keyboard or with a pen. Write hard, write with passion, because that is what you do. Don't waste any time dissing other writers or whining about how tough things are." (Bell, 258)

Let's get to work.