• By Winston Kuwada
• Published 01/24/2012
• Writing

If you are planning on writing a novel, then you are among a very select group of people. Plenty people have vague ideas of writing a killer novel, but very few make it very far. The fact that you are actually taking steps to make it happens says something important about your character. You must know that writing a novel is a long, tedious process without any hint of reward except years in the future. That means you’ve got to be very self motivated. Many people fail for this very reason. They start off like gangbusters, but quickly fizzle out. In this article, you’ll learn what you need in order to make it happen. First of all, you’ve got to think of it like a business. Something that you do every day for a certain amount of time. If you wait around until you feel “inspired” to write, it’s never going to happen. You need to get into the habit of writing every day, day after day, even if what you think you write is utter and complete garbage.

In order to do this, you’ve got to eliminate all the distractions that you possibly can. No TV. No surfing the Internet. If you ca

n, set up a separate room in the house that nobody is allowed to come into. It’s your writing room. Put up a couple of motivational posters, a nice desk, and a comfortable computer with your favorite word processing program. There’s plenty of reason to use the Internet. Many people recommend that you shut off the Internet completely, or at least don’t have it hooked up to the computer you’re writing your novel on. But the truth is that the Internet can be a helpful tool when doing research. There’s plenty of information online that can help you make your characters and plot come to life. The most important thing is to have a schedule. If you write in the evening sometimes, the afternoon sometimes, and sometimes not at all, pretty soon weeks will have passed without you writing anything. Choose at least three hours every day that you will dedicate only to writing. Only when you can stick to such a schedule will you expect to finish your novel in an appropriate amount of time.

When you follow these guidelines, it will be a walk in the park to finish your novel. And before you know it, you’ll be famous and rich and everybody will wish they were you.