The glamorous life of a writer

Not! Or, as I explain at "The Writer's Life" today, it takes a lot of continuous slogging to make the magic happen:

When people find out my 20th mystery came out this spring they often ask: how do I do it? The answer is simple: If you do the work, the magic happens.

A shorter answer is that I consider writing my job. I make myself work on my books five days a week. When I’m in the process of drafting a new manuscript, as I am now, that means sitting down at my desk and not getting up until I produce a certain pre-determined number of words. These days, that’s usually 1,200 words, though when my deadline is tight, it can go up. And as I near the end of a manuscript, it usually climbs on its own until I have to be dragged away to eat dinner or sleep.

Read more here.