Writers write. That’s sort of our thing. Don’t worry if you’re stuck on something in one piece. It will keep: Write something else!

Great writers are relentless readers. Read everything. Fiction. Non-fiction. Comic Books. The backs of cereal boxes. Whatever you can get your hands on!

Show me a story that is failing and I will show you a story with a structural problem. Hemingway went on and on about words. Lewis Carroll and the guys who wrote Ghostbusters (Yeah. I know it was supposedly Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis but you never really know in Hollywood) understood that words can be complete fucking gibberish so long as the structure to support them is solid.

The mechanics are the stuff that when added to story structure, gives you unexpected storyline that somehow still finds its way to the inevitability that makes a story work

 Every character has the absolute right and responsibility to be 100% themselves. As the writer, it’s your job to understand them. And that starts with psychology.

I have consumed thousands of books and stories. I have read almost none of them. I’m too ADHD for that. So I listen to audiobooks and watch television and movies. If I have to read, I usually do so with the audio playing as I do it.

People have enough of being told what they want to hear. They are reading you to see what you have to say. And they crave authenticity even when they fail to identify that desire. When you’re not saying what you truly have to say, authentically, it’s all just noisy lies. 

Writing isn’t about grammar. Will Rogers taught us that. There are, however, rules. Learn them. Apply them. There are writers who will argue against this. And I won’t argue the point: I have better things to do than argue with fools.

With very few exceptions, writer groups are giant, cliquish circle jerks. And most of the people in them don’t actually know their heads from their asses. You’d be better off reading an established book on writing.

Yeah, you know that dream you have of being the most interesting and celebrated guest at those New York and London dinner parties—the ones where a monocle would make you look smarter? Lose it. No one cares about you. No one cares about your writing. And they likely never will. Thousands of books get published every year. One or two get noticed. That’s not as cynical as you think. It’s actually the key component to enjoying the freedom of speech we all crave: If they don’t care about the stuff you’re proud to say, they’re not likely to care about the stuff you’ve been too afraid to say. So now you have a license to say it! Go for it!