Today I was reading an article my husband had found by Business Week called Thirty Ways to Wreck Your Career, and I was amazed at how many of these apply to being a writer. Though they all covered different aspects of behavior, there were several that jumped out at me. The first thing they mention is not living in the moment--or rather those who spend all of their time dreaming about the great things they are going to accomplish, but don't put in the work to succeed.

I'm always running into people who want to be writers. Some of them--the ones who are likely to succeed--are actually writing. Scads of others have a story they want to tell, but there's always something getting in the way. They have a demanding job, they have kids, maybe there's just too much going on in their lives.

Sometimes these are legitimate reasons--the fact is, when I have too much stress, I can't create. All of my attention is being sucked up by the crisis I'm dealing with, and that can make writing nearly impossible.

For most of us though, those excuses for why we can't make time to write are just that--excuses. I know writers who have full-time jobs, families, and many other demands on their time, and yet they still manage to crank out a book every year or two.