Things that stop me writing ...

When I'm in the zone, I can write up to 10,000 words a day, though generally I probably hit about 1,500 to 2,000.  On days when I write.  There are so many days, however, when I just can't write.  So what stops me from writing?

Like the majority of writers, I have a day job.  I only work part-time, but all the same, it's something I have to do in order to survive.  As one of my friends recently said, you can only get so far being a struggling artist.  At some point, you have to pay the electricity bill and the Internet bill, and you have to buy food etc etc.

My day job interferes with my creativity.  Generally, if I'm working the next day, I cannot get in the zone.  I can't concentrate or focus on writing.  The thing is, I can write in a busy Starbucks, I can write in a pub with all of that noise going on around me, I've even written when I've been travelling on a train (most recently when I travelled up to York to see good friend and fellow writer Dan Wagstaffe), but if I'm at work the next day, I don't have a hope in hell of being creative.  My day job is sometimes a night job.  I work irregular shifts, and invariably I'm at my place of work for 24 hours.  I can see - and it's more noticeable now, after the fact that I struggled to get my last book, "Besotted", written in over a year - that this job affects my creativity much more than a standard 9-5 job does.  When I worked 9-5, as soon as I left work for the day, my mind was already writing paragraphs.  

In reality, I need either a change of job, or else a bestselling book so I can concentrate on writing 24 hours a day.

But I guess as I haven't written a bestseller, I should adhere to that maxim, "Don't give up your day job ..."