Ray Bradbury wrote an excellent piece for writers called Zen In the Art of Writing. For those of you unfamiliar with Bradbury's work, I would suggest getting a goddamn Amazon account yesterday and purchasing at least six of his novels with overnight shipping. You have to be kidding me! That aside, Zen is an excellent introduction to creative writing made specifically with budding writers in mind.
One of Bradbury's suggestions, which has been echoed for ages, is that a writer should be creating as often, and as much, as possible. The idea is that a master [enter skilled trade] needs to practice his/her trade often in order to not only stay sharp, but to improve. If you have an idea, write it down - don't waste time editing it while you're writing, just write it! If the piece has merit, spend some down time later in the week/month editing it. Do this so often that you have a vast pool of work to choose from, and nearly endless practice.
Although I advocate this concept, I am not necessarily an adherent. In fact, I find the more I force myself to write, the less inspired I become. I am most inspired by the dungeons of my soul, and by the things which frighten me. To live in dungeons and to be frightened often, does not make for a sane individual capable of writing often, thus, I must balance my writing with my inspiration.
In any case, I've been working on a number of different projects, having sidelined my short story run for now. I am still waiting to hear back from Tin House regarding my submission for their 2015 Spring Rejection edition. I am also waiting to hear back from Front Porch Journal. Meanwhile, I continue to hack away at the Fawney Rig.
Oh, and I've taken back up an old flag I carried a year ago. It's a funny little project; once which I collaborated with a friend and local artist. I doubt I'll explain it much further, but it's nice to keep the fire going with something I really enjoy.
So while I don't necessarily write every day, I must say, you gotta keep them embers burnin' or else the damn fire could go out...