the guardian published lists of 10 rules for writing.
the exercise was inspired by elmore leonard's rules. there's alot of responses and alot of interest. i liked this list so copy it as a teaser:
Quote:
Anne Enright
1 The first 12 years are the worst.
2 The way to write a book is to actually write a book. A pen is useful, typing is also good. Keep putting words on the page.
3 Only bad writers think that their work is really good.
4 Description is hard. Remember that all description is an opinion about the world. Find a place to stand.
5 Write whatever way you like. Fiction is made of words on a page; reality is made of something else. It doesn't matter how "real" your story is, or how "made up": what matters is its necessity.
6 Try to be accurate about stuff.
7 Imagine that you are dying. If you had a terminal disease would you omgfinish this book? Why not? The thing that annoys this 10-weeks-to-live self is the thing that is wrong with the book. So change it. Stop arguing with yourself. Change it. See? Easy. And no one had to die.
8 You can also do all that with whiskey.
9 Have fun.
10 Remember, if you sit at your desk for 15 or 20 years, every day, not omgcounting weekends, it changes you. It just does. It may not improve your temper, but it fixes something else. It makes you more free.
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here's links to the whole piece:
Ten rules for writing fiction | Books | guardian.co.uk
the writers whose responses are in part 1: Elmore Leonard, Diana Athill, Margaret Atwood, Roddy Doyle, Helen Dunmore, Geoff Dyer, Anne Enright, Richard Ford, Jonathan Franzen, Esther Freud, Neil Gaiman, David Hare, PD James, AL Kennedy
Ten rules for writing fiction(part two) | Books | guardian.co.uk
the writers: Hilary Mantel, Michael Moorcock, Michael Morpurgo, Andrew Motion, Joyce Carol Oates, Annie Proulx, Philip Pullman, Ian Rankin, Will Self, Helen Simpson, Zadie Smith, Colm Tóibín, Rose Tremain, Sarah Waters, Jeanette Winterson
i like this piece. i'm pleased the guardian put it together. i cant really imagine it happening by way of an american newspaper. while that is a bit sad, it's not why i post this.
do you write? what genre do you work with? do you find any of these rules to be helpful or interesting or provocative? which ones and why?
do you find this sort of thing to be useful in general?
personally i dont generally but there's something about some of these that seemed a bit different, like they were actually written not as a how-to thing but as process notes. and alot of them are about the same basic questions--you edit and edit some more. things feel finished but it's hard to say if anything you do is "good" or not because, well, who decides that? so you make procedures and try to be disciplined about them and you keep going. and something happens. it makes you a little crazy at times, it seems, because when the Something that Happens happens, it doesn't resolve any of the every day questions. it just couldn't happen without your having pushed through the every day questions.
so that's why i like some of these: they're about not knowing but continuing anyway.
what do you think?