Many will answer this with lots of artsy-fartsy crap.

Not me.

Writing a novel is a job and needs to be approached that way. If you’re serious about it you need to write on a schedule when you feel like it and when you don’t feel like it…especially when you don’t.

You want to write a 300 page mystery?

This is how:

Three pages or more a day for 100 days.

Leave it alone for a month.

Take another 60-120 days to edit, revise and polish.

That’s it.

Don’t meditate. Don’t wait for the muse. Don’t take a writing class.

Ass on chair, fingers on keyboard. Go.

Not glamorous. It’s work.