KEEP A JOURNAL:
If you want to write, you need to keep an honest,
unpublishable journal that nobody reads, nobody but you.
Where you just put
down what you think about life, what you think about things,
what you think is
fair and what you think is unfair.
READ:
You need to read. You can’t be a writer if you’re not a
reader.
It’s the great writers who teach us how to write.
Don't tell me that you don't have time to read.
This
is like a man starting up Mount Everest saying that he didn’t have time to buy
any rope or pitons.
WRITE:
Write. Just write a little bit every day. Even if it’s for
only half an hour — write, write, write.
Let the writer take up surgery or bricklaying if she is
interested in technique.
There is no mechanical way to get the writing done, no
shortcut.
The young writer would be a fool to follow a theory.
Teach yourself
by your own mistakes; people learn only by error.
The good artist believes that
nobody is good enough to give him advice.
She has supreme vanity.
No matter how
much she admires the old writer, she wants to beat him.
What did Joss Whedon say? "You either HAVE to write, or you shouldn't be writing at all."
LISTEN TO NEIL GAIMAN:
“Start telling the stories that only you can tell,
because
there’ll always be better writers than you
and there’ll always be smarter
writers than you.
There will always be people who are much better at doing this
or doing that –
but you are the only you.”
TAKE THE TIME AND EFFORT TO BE AWARE:
Becoming
a writer is about becoming conscious.
When you’re conscious and writing from a
place of insight and simplicity and real caring about the truth,
you have the
ability to throw the lights on for your reader.
He or she will recognize his or
her life and truth in what you say,
in the prose pictures you have painted,
and this
decreases the terrible sense of isolation that we have all had too much of.
Try to leave the Ivory Tower School of Writing --
do not write about Man.
Write of A man ... or A woman ...
trying to make sense of their lives, lost dreams, failed loves.
"Listen" to the stories of the lives around you.
For it is in them that you will find the roots of your own novels.
START WRITING NOW:
Start writing right now.
Don’t write it right, just write it
–
and then make it right later.
Give yourself the mental freedom to enjoy the
process,
because the process of writing is a long one.
Be wary of “writing
rules” and advice. Do it your way.
Ignore critics.
Critics are a dime a dozen. Anybody can
be a critic. Writers are priceless.
Go where the pleasure is in your writing. Go where the pain
is.
Write the book you would like to read.
Write the book you have been trying
to find but have not found.
But write.
LEARN TO LISTEN TO YOUR INSTINCTS:
Learn
to trust your own judgment,
learn inner independence, learn to trust that time
will sort the good from the bad –
including your own bad.
Every writer knows fear and discouragement.
Just write.
The world is crying for new writing.
It is crying for fresh and original voices
and new characters and new stories.
If you won’t write the classics of
tomorrow, well, we will not have any.
How much time do you put into writing each day?
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