For one hundred days, I’m going to post a writing tip each day. I have a whole bookshelf full of writing books and I want to do some reading and increased studying of this valuable resource. This will help me keep track of anything I’ve learned, and help motivate me to keep going. If anyone has a favorite tip of their own to add, contact me. I’d love to put it up here.

Today’s tip – Exhaustion

Source – On Writing, by Stephen King

The bigger deal was that, for the first time in my life, writing was hard. The problem was the teaching. I liked my coworkers and loved the kids – even the Beavis and Butt-Head types in Living with English could be interesting – but by most Friday afternoons I felt as if I’d spent the week with jumper cables clamped to my brain. If I ever came close to despairing about my future as a writer, it was then.

There are so many days that I plan on writing in the evenings, but as I stare at the terrifying blank screen I realize I am too exhausted to think, let alone write. I’m sure everyone that has to provide feels the same way.

I don’t have a solution, sorry. The only advice I can offer is to cheat – to find nooks and crannies of time where you can scribble before the day is wasted. Television is the enemy, too… I find if I even glance at the tube I’m not going to get any writing done – it sucks the ideas out and chews them to death.

What’s the old typical awful advice? — Oh yea, You are are going to have to buckle down. Buckle down? That’s not very useful, is it?

Unfortunately, I haven’t come across anything better.