Top 6 Habits of Professional Writers and Bloggers

After being a professional writer for some time, you start to develop certain productive habits. These habits make the difference between writing deliberately and dabbling in a hobby.

When you make a conscious decision to start taking your craft seriously, you'll experience an incredible difference. You will not only become a better and more prolific writer, but you'll start actually finishing projects, which is probably one of the biggest challenges writers face.

To be a writer of consequence, you have to develop some very specific tendencies. Serious writers – those who not only finish their novels, but also get them published – consistently practice the following habits. 

1. Write

This may seem silly, but it cannot be stressed enough. In order to be something, you have to do what is required to earn that title. If you don't write on a regular basis, don't fool yourself into thinking you are a real writer. If and when you want it bad enough, you'll make it happen.

We all understand how busy life can get, especially if you have a full time job, family and kids, and a social life. However, if you want to call yourself a "writer", you have to make writing a priority. It takes discipline and a willingness to spend a lot of time by yourself. You have to be willing to actually sit down and write.

You don't have to spend all day, every day writing (although that will increase your odds of success), but you do have to schedule a routine – whether it's a few hours every morning, or just once a week.

"Write while the heat is in you. The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with." – Henry David Th

Quick Tip #1 - Just Do It

At least once a week, you should be writing something down. It doesn't have to be the next great novel of the 21st century and you don't have to worry about how great your writing is – just write. Regularly requiring yourself to write is one of the best reasons to start a blog(and if you don't have a blog, my friend Gary Dek has a free step-by-step tutorial at StartABlog123.com). If you have no ideas for a story or a blog post, then try some stream-of-consciousness journaling.

Set a timer for 15 minutes and write without stopping. Don't worry about punctuation, grammar, spelling, sentence structure or anything other than getting your thoughts on paper. You don't have to show it to anyone, you don't even have to keep it. More than likely, after time is up, you'll be inspired to keep going. You just have to open the floodgates. Like anything else, starting is the hardest part.

2. Concentrate

Here is a scenario we're all familiar with: you sit down to write a freelance article, but first you wonder what's happening on Facebook. Bam, an hour has passed and you haven't written a thing. Or perhaps you want to write a blog post and figure you'll check out the news for inspiration. Then the sun has gone down and you've just spent the better part of the afternoon scrolling through the comments section on Yahoo News! There is nothing that wastes a day like falling down the Internet rabbit hole.

Writing is work, and just like with any other kind of work, you have to focus on it or else you'll be so distracted, your best intentions will turn into the most