Writing is an individual pursuit. You rarely get support/praise on your writing especially from family. If you are a Indie published author, you have to do everything from learning, publishing, marketing, social media, advertising, etc. You better find competent people to help you along the way or your stress level will shoot up to the moon.
My schedule is I don't have one. Most writers try to write some everyday. Some writer religiously a few hours everyday. I write when I can get to it. Sometimes I will write a few days in a row for an hour. But life gets in the way where you have to be somewhere else than in front of your laptop. I have taken a month or two off during a year and I still publish two books a year.
Yes, I experience writer's block. I find that its best to take a day or two off and see if an idea will form in my head on a direction my novel needs to go. When I am mowing the lawn is a great time for me to ponder on my novel's problems. I have 4 acres of grass and it takes 4-5 hours to mow. I usually get some really good ideas during this time. At some point, every author will go through writer's block. Get away from your work for a long walk, watch a movie, listen to music. It will come.
Yes, I have read some of my reviews. I could obsess over these and get stressed out. If it was a bad review, I would wonder what were these people thinking? Did they get what I was trying to say? I finally figured out that you can't please everyone. I may get more bad reviews in the future. I really don't care, that's their problem. I love each and every book I have published. I hope other people will too. I have gotten plenty of good reviews from other people that didn't leave a review on Amazon.
Yes, it would be great to make dump truck piles of money from publishing my books. But, that's not why I write. I write books to entertain people. I write fiction and you need to have a good imagination. Imagination can take you anywhere and do anything. I read a lot and started when I was a young adult. I love to escape in the excitement of a story or learn history about different people, places, or issues. I want to do the same for others.
I have two reasons that started me writing. The first is that my stepfather was a Hollywood playwright. He wrote some of the episodes of the original "Three Stooges" and numerous other TV shows. He also wrote some novels. I wanted to emulate him. The second reason is that once I retired one of my best friends said he was writing a novel. We have been competitive in other areas of our relationship like playing games and it got me to thinking well if he can do so can I.
