1. Write.
2. Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down.
3. Finish what you're writing. Whatever you have to do finish it.
4. Put it aside. Read it pretending you've never read it before. Show it to friends whose opinion you respect and who like the kind of thing that it is.
5. Remember: When people tell you something's wrong or doesn't work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they thing is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.
6. Fix it. Remember that, sooner or later, before it ever reaches perfection, you will have to let it go and move on and write the next thing. Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving.
7. Laugh at your own jokes.
8. The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you're allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it's definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it honestly, and tell it as best you can. I'm not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.
Happy Writing!
Source: We Heart It | Gotham Writers Workshop
Oh I get what Nano gifts are now! lol Ignore me!
ReplyDeleteThose are great tips! I must save this post. I believe Neil Gaiman also wrote the book Stardust. Did you ever read it or see the movie?
One last question, are you doing Nano?
I've (sadly, very sadly) never read any of Neil Gaimain's books, but he's a huge inspiration to me. He's a rockstar. He wrote a 'pep talk' for NaNoWriMo and it saved me from quitting last year; it was the only pep talk I read. It's amazing, he talked about all the things I was thinking about and it made me feel like I was, in some strange and unearthly way, on his level. It was like he brought me there, to his level, and said "Here, you belong here because you're a writer." I'm still feeling it, a year later.
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