Rules for Writers

10 Commandments

1. Abandon Hope, Ye Who Enter Here. It's a dangerous and heartless world for those who put their fears and hearts out into the world for review.

2. Respect the stupid man. Though they be ignorant and nuisance, they also be your audience, many stupid people in the world. Write for the audience because no one cares about you.

3. Destroy yourself and your craft. There is no craft in writing, not anymore, never again. The New York Times Best Selling authors say that they have an office in their homes where they work 8 hour days with a lunch break in between, and in that time they force themselves to write. Whatever comes out is forced. No art. Sell.

4. Be irrational. The tallest of the tall tales makes for good sci fi. If you wanted to write a coherent story, you should have been a screenwriter.

5. Become a Creative Genius. Go sit by yourself in the aisles of Barnes and Noble and just read. Many people's intelligence can't support their imagination, so become intelligent. Creative Genius' are people who are amazing at being completely wrong, but do it so that it sounds like it could be right.

6. Stay in school. Let them purge your gift from your system and give you their way of doing it. If you follow the program, you'll transfer to USC where you'll get a Master's in Creative Writing and become rich and famous like Stephen Spielberg. The worse that will happen is that you will end up being a legal secretary and they make good money. All your lousy natural talent will get you is some luck.

7. Don't hang out on writer's websites. They're full of people who believe in themselves. People who believe in themselves put everything of themselves into their writing, so when you critique their writing, you are critiquing them. If someone called you fat, you'd punch them too even if you were fat. Never say anything but nice things about someone's writing, flattery may get you a job and at worse may get you laid.

8. Don't listen to what "those who've been published" have to say, go straight to a publisher and ask them if your stuff is crap or not because in the end, all every writer is doing is guessing at what may or may not get published. Isaac Asimov got rejected right up to the end of his days. You're wasting your time and emotions listening to writing guru's.

9. Never fall with a friend. Though you be an angel, fallen angels always end up in Hell.

And last but not least…

10. If at first you don’t succeed…quit.

Reviews

[Brooklyn Darkchild]

Great Article.
I want to say Hilarious!
But I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
I guess beneath every sarcastic, satirical piece lies a heart once shredded like a crooked accountant's tax files. Some of the things you list are downright, painfully, true. And yet,
we continue to write. Why???
Who knows.
Be Blessed!
DC

[Honors Student]

I quit.

[The Everyday Surprises ..]

Wow i really liked this thought some it was funny and it's down right true when you think about it. I dont know wether to laugh or cry... I love number 7, ironic

[Patrick Callaghan]

"Never say anything but nice things about someone's writing, flattery may get you a job and at worse may get you laid. "

Alas, so perhaps your review of my short story was merely a sneaky attempt to get in my pants?

[Pax Analog]

1. Agreed. I don't give a s**t about hope.
2. Half-agreed. There are strands of training possible by seducing the stupid mind with ice cream.
3. Destroy it ALL. ALL provisional ideas are servants, not masters. The Power of Now is a thousand times more liberating than The Power of Purpose. Both are best-sellers.
4. Be POSTrational, more than pre-. Crazy wise.
5. "Creative genius" is usually a monkey phrase applied to hyper-cleverness. "Spiritual genius" is the true outsider "f**k you" blast from the Great Beyond.
6. F**k school. There is no education, no shitstem, no anything. It is a wilderness of hungry ghosts.
7. Become like me or die. ;-)
8. It is ALL a waste of time. I've been "legitimately" published, I've been embraced and ignored, I've put it out myself, I've been told I'm too f*****g good for the world, or greeted w/"haloes" of squiggly question marks. Smithereensville.
9. "As I walked through Hell, filled with the delights of Genius, which to the angels look like torment. . ." William Blake. Anybody know any Blakes today? Not many. Look for the ones who set your hair on fire with their gaze.
10. Do what you do out of a sacred monstrosity of Spirit, or go the f**k away.

[nostal]

Ha, love No. 7, so true.

[Legion]

I especially love no. 9. Great and funny work.

[No one]

Funny stuff. I disagree with everything you wrote here but see the (anti-)point you're trying to make, and still I wonder if this is all a joke. An agent once told me a few of these things. He wasn't joking. He said, "If you want to make money, real money, forget about art. Write screenplays."
**I thought it was funny that something entitled Rules For Writers had so many grammatical and punctuation errors. The glaring mistakes within the piece made me think it was definitely a joke.

I thought this was REALLY funny:--->go straight to a publisher and...

[Rogue Daffodil]

This is fabulous! I love it! Could be true. I hope not, but it sure feels that way a lot of the time. My favorite Commandment:

3. Destroy yourself and your craft. There is no craft in writing, not anymore, never again.

Brilliant!

[mick weller]

'so become intelligent'... ha ha, I like it!
cheers