10 Rules for Writing

The Guardian BookBlog recently had a number of authors submit their top ten rules for writing and posted them all online. The results range from the practical to the profound, and though I do recommend reading them all, here is a "super-list" that I have compiled showcasing my ten favorites. (Narrowing them down was no easy task, considering the ones I culled for my own files added up to a document three pages long! Many though were re-phrasings of similar rules, so the ones here I think represent the best cross-section.) Enjoy:

The "Super-List"

10. Do not place a photograph of your favourite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide
-Roddy Doyle

9. Read. As much as you can. As deeply and widely and nourishingly and irritatingly as you can. And the good things will make you remember them, so you won't need to take notes.
-Al Kennedy

8. Don't try to anticipate an "ideal reader" – there may be one, but he/she is reading someone else.
-Joyce Carol Oates

7. It's doubtful that anyone with an internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction.
-Jonathan Franzen

6. 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 think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.
-Neil Gaimen

5. Jokes are like hands and feet for a painter. They may not be what you want to end up doing but you have to master them in the meanwhile.
-David Hare

4. Interesting verbs are seldom very interesting.
-Jonathan Franzen

3. In the planning stage of a book, don't plan the ending. It has to be earned by all that will go before it.
-Rose Tremain

2. Treat writing as a job. Be disciplined. Lots of writers get a bit OCD-ish about this. Graham Greene famously wrote 500 words a day. Jean Plaidy managed 5,000 before lunch, then spent the afternoon answering fan mail. My minimum is 1,000 words a day – which is sometimes easy to achieve, and is sometimes, frankly, like shitting a brick, but I will make myself stay at my desk until I've got there, because I know that by doing that I am inching the book forward. Those 1,000 words might well be rubbish – they often are. But then, it is always easier to return to rubbish words at a later date and make them better.
-Sarah Waters

1. If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
-Elmore Leonard