Dubious Advice Given in my Workshops

To be honest, I distrust most general writing advice. So I give a lot of bad advice in my workshops. I just hope that even though it may be bad, it’s useful to think about. Here’s some of my worst:

I hope you get the chance to watch your entire life disintegrate in one day. There’s no greater gift you can give yourself as a writer.
Cliché will make you a Nazi.
Take walks where you shouldn’t go. Try to find somewhere that you can get hurt for just being who you are.
Plots are for gardeners.
Writing a novel means carrying on a conversation with every other book you’ve ever read. A conversation you can’t share, and wouldn’t if you could. Have a divorce lawyer on speed dial.
Steal everything you can get away with.
Avoid people with moderate opinions. They’re useless to you.
It’s always fun to see if you can sabotage your relationship with your reader.
Hallucinogenic drugs may not make you a better writer, but they can’t hurt.
One good way to inform your understanding of consequences is to get a concealed carry permit. And use it.
Cultivate your prejudices. Nourish them.
There is nothing, and I mean nothing, to be learned while shopping at Whole Foods. There is much to be learned at Walmart. Ignore the politics-of-personal-purity bullshit and shop accordingly.
Read several books at once. It’s a kind of cross-contamination not too far off from the writing of book.
I don’t buy that shit about an author having to suffer for her art. But the desire to be an author is a damn good way to get there anyways.
Ignore as much of the business side of this as you can. If you’re doing it to make money, you’re doing it wrong.
I never met anybody who changed much in life, and I distrust authors who make their characters do it in fiction.
Don’t read to richen your life, that’s nonsense. Live a life to richen your reading.
Everybody is more interesting with a gun to their head.
Every possible book about redemption and closure has already been written and has an Oprah Book Club seal.
Get punched in the face now and then to note your lack of interiority.
Ignore all writing advice not particular to your project.