Nine times out of ten thousand, they are always WRONG.

I shall write my own.

1) Write a sentence you wouldn’t dare let anyone see. Backspace it if you can’t handle it. Do this action repeatedly until you’re ok with it staying on the page. Those sentences that you wouldn’t DARE write and that you finally have the courage to let stay? Those are the ones that don’t bore the shit out of people and make a good book.

2) There’s no such thing as writer’s block. Writer’s block means you are scared of your TRUE, HONEST FEELINGS and you are ignoring rule number one. Means you’re scared of yourself. Scared of the truth. When you break thru to the truth, your writing just flows with zero effort. Voila. Now you know the secret to that.

3) Don’t let anyone critique your writing for STYLE. Line editing, maybe, when it’s done. But that’s it. No critiques. No “I didn’t like the ending” or no “I thought the plot was too thin” or no “I think it’s too fast, too slow paced, you used the wrong word here, you should have longer sentences, shorter sentences, less adjectives, more adjectives, more dialogue, less dialogue, it should be shorter, longer, tigher, looser, whatever. None of that. What the fuck do you think? Did it bore YOU? Write it, finish it, put it away in the closet for 6 months, then come back to it. That’s how you edit. Later. On. When you’ve forgot. Now, six months later, you’ll see all the places where stuff jumps out at YOU, places you need revisions, additions, or cuts. Did it bore YOU? If it did you ignored rule number one, yet again…

4) As Anne Rice says: “Protect your Vision as a writer.” Do not be talked out of what you think makes a good story, book, poem, blog. Be yourself at all times, and fuck people with opinons. Remember what opinions are like? Assholes. Everybody has one. Who cares. Write blindly, write faithfully, write with confidence, write about what matters to you, be utterly in love with your take on things. Believe in your take on things, your stance. Believe it 100%, every page, every line should be 100% you. Do that and others will believe too.

Nothing else matters but that.

5) Post this where you brush your teeth. Read daily until it’s all a big egotistical habit. People who don’t believe viciously in the things they write do not become known for them.

Ergo, this will probably live in infamy.

By Erin Courtney Adair Bryan

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