The Hyatt Embassy C–D at 4PM on Saturday was the panel to attend if you were interested in learning more how to be more productive with your writing. Kevin J. Anderson, international bestselling author with over 140 published books in 23 languages, demonstrated how we can make time to write.

• Be prolific or starve. Writing one book a year makes it virtually impossible to pay the bills.
• Being a part-time writer usually consists of the following formula:
• One to two hours a night, a few hours on the weekends
• This adds up to about ten hours a week or 520 hours a year.
• Being a full-time writer usually consists of the following formula:
• Eight hours a day, seven days a week

This means (if you used the above part-time formula) that you can write 520 hours in nine weeks. Obviously, to be prolific, you need to keep writing.

Fast writing does not mean bad writing. Dumas, Dickens, and Verne were very prolific. A Christmas Carol was written in six weeks. A Clockwork Orange was written in three weeks. Fahrenheit 451 was written in nine days.

Here are the 11 tips:

1. Shut up and write
2. Defy the empty page
3. Dare to be bad (at first)
4. Know the difference between writing and editing
5. Use every minute
6. Set goals for yourself and stick to them
7. Work on different projects at the same time
8. Create your best writing environment
9. Think outside your keyboard
10. Get inspired
11. Know when to stop

Bottom line is to submit. You can’t be published if you don’t send your work out for publication.