I'm writing my first book, and let me tell you... it's a roller coaster of an experience. Some days when I sit down to write, I feel enthused. (Someone call the Pulitzer board. I'm on to something here!)
Other days, I'm hopeless. Who wants to read this load of ...?
Either way, I sit down almost every day to write. I started this process about a month ago, and I think I've taken three days off total. I just finished writing chapter 11, and am somewhere around page 75 (give or take the editing I do from day to day).
But the thing is this: I don't know how you're "supposed" to write a book. I just know what seems to be working for me. I turn out all the lights in the office, close the blinds, and pull the (huge) monitor of the Mac right up to the edge of the desk... and begin to write. -With my noise cancelling head phones on... usually Muse or Red Hot Chili Peppers or Over the Rhein on iTunes playing.
I'm my novel's first reader (as Stephen King points out), and I'm excited to see where it's going to go. I just wish I could get past this business of feeling like a flunkie. Don't all writers start somewhere?
I sort have adapted the Powerball adage which is something like "Somebody's got to [write, be published, be an author, etc.]. Why not you?"
Why not, indeed!