Kelley asked Liz Davidson:

What's your advice for aspiring writers?

Liz Davidson Writing is a discipline. You have to sit down every day and do it. Even when you don’t feel like it. Even when you hate what is coming out. Even when you have a million other things that you’d rather be doing. Some writers I know work for a certain number of hours and write whatever they can in that time each day. For me, it was working to a specific goal every day. I’m going to write this chapter, or section of a chapter. Or I’m going to edit an entire chapter to the best of my ability before I shut down the computer and call it a day.

Inspiration does sometimes come out of nowhere, but I think it’s more common that it comes from actually doing the work— at some point, you shift from writing for the sake of writing and start forming what you want to say. If you wait until you are inspired, you’ll fall into a pattern of procrastination which ultimately gives you more reasons not to write. I think this is why so many writers take years, even decades, to write a single book.

All that said, let’s face it— there’s nothing like a deadline with an editor breathing down your neck. Pressure creates diamonds, as they say. When you have no choice, all of a sudden your focus intensifies and you kick into high gear. You silence your inner critic because you don’t have the time for perfectionism— and then you really start to fly.

What Your Financial Advisor Isn’t Telling You was written daily, but the best parts emerged when I was under the gun. That’s when the raw material turned into real chapters.

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