Some writers need a while to charge their batteries, and then write their books very rapidly. Some writers write a page or so every day, rain or shine. Some writers run out of steam, and need to do whatever it is they happen to do until they’re ready to write again. Sometimes writers haven’t quite got the next piece of work ready in their heads, but they have something else all ready instead, so they write the thing that’s ready to go, prompting cries of outrage from people who want to know why the writer could possibly write content X while the boss was waiting for content Y.

I remember hearing an upset editor telling a roomful of other editors about an artist who had taken a few weeks off to paint his house. The editor pointed out, repeatedly, that for the money the artist would have been paid for those weeks’ work he could easily have afforded to hire someone to paint his house, and made money too. And I thought, but did not say, “But what if he wanted to paint his house?”

Sometimes what happens just happens. Just like that. You don’t choose what will work. You simply do the best you can each time. And you try to do what you can to increase the likelihood that good stuff will be created.

And sometimes, and it’s as true of writers and artists as it is of readers, you have a life. People in your world get sick or die. You fall in love, or out of love. You move house. Your aunt comes to stay. You agreed to help a friend out by creating a website or write an email half a year ago, only to realize that the day he needs it was yesterday. Your cat learns to levitate and the matter must be properly documented and investigated. There are eagles laying eggs in your shoe. A thunderstorm fries your hard disk and fries the backup drive as well…

And life is a good thing for writers and artists. It’s where we get our raw material, for a start. We quite like to stop and watch it.