How to be a (successful) writer

I’ve read a lot of posts and blogs about how to write, and I thought I’d synthesize my own personal experiences. So here goes:

1. Get up at 5am and start writing.

2. Get up at 4am and start writing.

3. Did I mention getting up early and starting to write? Get up at  3am you lazy bastard. Do you want this or not?

4. Write anything. Like a wannabee-crystals waiting to nucleate in a solution, if you don’t start something–anything–then there is nothing for anything else to attach itself to. START WRITING RIGHT NOW!!!!!

5. SHOW do not TELL…is there a way for you to show that your characters don’t like being eaten by brain-worms? Ouch, that hurts! Exactly!

5. Eliminate “suddenly” and all exclamation points from your text. Please do this right now. Your writing, no matter what it is, will benefit from this simple step.

6. Eliminate all adjective piles..if you have more than ONE, TINY, HARMLESS, SINGLE adjective in front of a noun, either pick a better noun (preferred) or choose one of the adjectives by itself (second preferred).

7. Go through your text and eliminate all words ending in “ly”. This is called the adverb assassination phase. If you can’t find a better verb, or think think that it is ABSOLUTELY (giggle) necessary…then keep the adverb…but know what we HATE it. Find better verbs and adverbs. Think about it.

8. If it sounds like writing, then cut it out. What is critical to moving your plot? Only keep this.

9. Talk to as many friends as possible about your ideas.

10. Keep drinking. Rinse. Repeat.