I’m going to treat writing as a job. Just as I did with the extra courses I was doing this spring, which helped me schedule time for them and complete them successfully. On the other hand, if I treat writing like something I can do when I feel like (even though I enjoy it), then I won’t do it, because at the end of the day writing is still work, and who wants to do extra work if you don’t ‘have’ to.
I’ve often wondered why J.K. Rowling hasn’t written anything else. Did she really only have the one idea in her? (A marvellous and fantastic idea it was). Or maybe, it was a hell of a lot of work, and she just doesn’t want to do that work anymore (for now, or maybe forever). Whether or not she has enough money to last the rest of her life doesn’t matter, Stephen King feels a calling to write that he can’t resist, and it has nothing to do with money. I think J.K. obviously doesn’t feel that calling as strongly, OR, my guess is she just needs a break from all the work she did writing those books!
Kiera Polzin, The Navigator Series 
I don’t know. I am guessing that writing the Harry Potter series would be some really hard work. She had to stay with the same characters for so long. My guess is that she needed a breather, a really long one.
I have to set goals for myself in order to keep on the writing (or editing currently). It is hard to stay on task sometimes.
Good for you! Writing is a job and I’ve listened to many professional authors say that the only way to stay published is to set work hours and force yourself to write. I treat writing like a job and now my friends are calling me prolific because I’ve written so much. It is difficult but if you can do it you will reap the rewards!
There was nearly a decade gap between Kurt Vonnegut’s first and second novels.
Writers are funky like that sometimes. But you’re right to think of writing as a job. Not a daily trudge through the word-fields in the sentence mine- but something which you must give the same (and likely more) attention as you do whatever it is that pays the bills.
Before Einstein published his first physics papers he worked as a clerk. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t a physicist. And it certainly didn’t mean he wasn’t brilliant.
I’m struggling with this now. Setting aside time can prove a difficult task. Trying to “fit writing (what I really LOVE) in” seems unfair. I have decided that I will set aside at least one hour a day to do just that. Write. Hopefully, I’ll become disciplined enough that it will become habit, and perhaps I can begin to write in my sleep. 😀