The “Rules” of Writing

(This article is a “reprint” from our first year of operating Book View Cafe—2008)

Robert Heinlein posited that there were two rules of writing:

1. You must write.

2. You must finish what you write.

That’s easy enough to say, but how does one go about it?

Well, let’s look at Heinlein’s first rule of writing: you must write. I suspect every writer comes to a point in her life when she asks, “Do postcards and letters to mom count? How about shopping lists—do shopping lists count?” In my opinion the...