Writing popular fiction

solicits my advice, I always say the most important thing a writer must cultivate is discipline. He must learn to sit at the typewriter a certain number of hours every day, and he must teach himself to complete a minimum number of pages in each sitting. He cannot afford the conceit so often expressed by the amateur: "I can only write when the muse is with me." The professional author can write whenever he wants to. He can learn to stimulate a tired imagination and kick himself into action when he would rather read or sunbathe or watch television.
    I used to work ten to twelve hours a day, seven days a week, with an occasional day off for some folly or other. Now, I work eight hours a day, five or six days a week, which is the best schedule for the professional writer to maintain. Writing is your job; it puts the bread on your table. Your fringe benefits are numerous—no bosses, no white shirt and starched collar, late to bed and late to rise, unlimited earnings potential, an outlet for the ego—but you must earn them through hard work. If your goal is eight pages of finished script a day and you only produce two pages on Monday, you had better produce fourteen on Tuesday; if you let yourself slide one day your entire schedule will collapse.
    Heinie Faust (under the pseudonym Max Brand) produced hundreds of Westerns in his career and sold millions of copies of his work, by writing only two hours a day. His secret was to write two hours
every
day, no matter what, and to produce fourteen pages in those two hours. Few writers have matched his prolific pace.
    Of course, the part-time writer cannot keep a schedule of this sort in addition to his regular job and family duties. But, just as the full-time professional, he should learn to force his imagination into gear without the aid of the "muse." He should set aside one or more days of each weekend for uninterrupted work. If possible, he should write for an hour or two every evening. If he truly cares about a career as a novelist, he will not begrudge the hours spent working that could have been passed in relaxation, games, or sport.
    The successful freelancer, the one whose books occasionally sell to the movies and who receives solid paperback advances, can afford to, and should, take a few weeks off between each project, time to recharge the creative batteries. But the new writer, with a name to build, needs to work as much as he can stand to work.
    14.
But what if I sit at the typewriter day after day and only produce a few paragraphs
? Don't give up and don't satisfy yourself with so little. Grit your teeth when you find your self stuck or daydreaming, and go on—put a verb after a noun, a conjunction after that, another verb, a phrase, and so on until you are working with words as if they were tangible blocks. What you create this way may be crude, but you can keep retyping the page until it's right, then go on. The dogged drive you display will eventually erase the clumsiness and give you a genuine ease with the words.
    15.
How do I overcome a complete writer's block, when I can't write even one word
? A writer's block is most often caused by one of five things: overwork, boredom, self-doubt, financial worries, or emotional problems between the writer and those close to him. If overwork is the cause, stop writing for a couple of days or weeks; when you're ready to start again, you'll know, because the typewriter will no longer appear to be a formidable opponent, but a delightful toy. If boredom with the piece in progress has slowed you to a standstill, put it aside and begin something new, no matter how close to the end of the piece you may be; chances are, if it bores you, it will bore editors and readers also. The simplest way to cure a case of self-doubt is to shame yourself without restraint for your lack of confidence and start something new which may, by its freshness, restore your confidence. Don't worry if you go through a dozen ideas before you hit something that gets you going again. Financial worries must be solved before you can write again, even if that means you—the full-time freelancer—must take a job, temporarily, to keep above water, or you—the part-time writer—must take a part-time job and temporarily forsake writing until your financial position is less chaotic. If emotional entanglements occupy your mind and keep you from producing, sit down with your boyfriend/girlfriend, husband/wife, and talk out the things that are bothering you.