These are challenging (feel free to substitute your favorite euphemism here) times. However, online classes are booming. I’ve chatted about this with a professor at an Ivy-League university all the way to someone who teaches Pilates. There’s no doubt that we’re seeking not just to amuse ourselves or forget the chaos all around, but to improve what we’ve got (inside our heads and bodies).

If you have been to a home-improvement store or garden center recently you know what I’m talking about.

Back to writing? Yes, as that’s what the blog series is really about. In the last five months, I’ve had more emerging writers take my classes than ever before and maybe you’re one of them. Thank you. You shine with determination, you are thrilled with excitement about writing and you’re alive with creativity.

Many get side tracked, quite easily, actually. I’ve fielded dozens and dozens of questions about what to do when it feels impossible to settle down to write. These new writers want to know what’s wrong with them. They can’t stay focused.

First off, see the first sentence. In difficult times when we’re perhaps worried about a hundred essential things, it’s tough to write, to stay focused. Creativity flies out the window.

However, two things will help:

1. Chair Glue.
2. Writing Office Hours.

To succeed as a writer, that is a person who writes but does not necessarily publish, one must use both.

May I tell you a story? When I was an emerging writer who wrongly quit her day job far too soon to chase the dream, I wasn’t selling anything. I wasn’t even submitting, truth be told.

A journalist I thought highly of listened to my saga of laments and said something like, “Stop your whining. Make writing office hours and stick with them. This is now your job. This is your business. Be a pushy and demanding boss.”

I rolled my eyes, as I wanted the carefree freelancer’s life of playing a lot and making money and working just a little, like on TV and in the movies. Right? I pray she didn’t see me do this.

Three months or so later, when I still couldn’t settle down and was not getting anywhere with my career, my mentor’s advice finally sank in. I’m slow at times. Without announcing it to her, which was unfair as she was oh, so right, I started sticking my backside down on a chair from nine to three, with lunch off for good behavior. I worked at being a writer.

If I wasn’t writing queries or articles, I wrote short stories. If short stories didn’t cut it for me right then, I sought out new markets for my work, read the magazines I wanted to pitch to and studied the craft of writing. Heck, I even got so into it that I ignored the phone, dirty dishes and the dust bunnies frolicking every corner.

It worked. The chair glue worked. The WOHs worked. I worked like I was gainfully employed and my career was launched.

No, I didn’t make barrels of money that first year and our vacation to Bora Bora didn’t happen until two years ago, some 30 years since I began my freelance career. But I was a working writer because I treated my writing like the business it was and still is today.

These are challenging (substitute your favorite euphemism here) times. They’re also the perfect opportunity to chase and capture your dreams. If writing is important, prioritize it. Carve out time. Say “no thanks.” If it’s not and you can’t keep WHO’s and chair glue isn’t sticking, then sorry, but move over as that’ll help the rest of us to more success.