Writing Rules I Live (Or At Least Write) By

I've not compiled this in a single post anywhere to my recollection, so I thought I'd put this down now for others.

First, some obligatory disclaimers. I'm an aspiring author. I have not been officially published. I have had an essay or two published in a collection, but I don't really count that since I wasn't paid for the work and the publication itself struck me as being vanity-published more than anything else; it was framed as a contest, winners were published, and on reflection they're getting content with little to nothing for the author outside of ego stroking. I count that as vanity publishing. Maybe others would have other opinions on that.

Second disclaimer: I'm a firm believer that there is no single how-to in publishing or writing novels. If there were a set of rules that you could check off in over to achieve a lucrative career in publishing your novels, I'm sure it would have already been published as a how-to book and there would be no need for people to call themselves wanna-be writers. They'd just follow the steps and collect checks.

So with that in mind, I'll tell you my current "rules to writing," in no particular order, I am currently following to create a manuscript.

Rule One: sit your behind in front of a keyboard and type. Very important step. A writer is a writer because he or she writes. Dreaming of writing makes you a wanna-be writer. I've graduated from wanna-be writer to wanna-be published author. Why? Because I'm writing.

Rule Two: write consistently to achieve a set goal. By goal, I mean a daily word count. I inevitably have some days where I don't make my count. Things happen. Life happens. Things get in the way. I have a family that needs attention as well as a day job. Sometimes that word count just ain't gonna happen. But these are rare days. Usually once every two weeks or so by my reckoning. My initial goal was 500 words a day. I've since found that I tend to get a little over a thousand words down in an hour under the right conditions, so I usually manage to get that thousand words down, far exceeding my goal. I've had several days where I managed to get 1,500 to 2,000 words.

Rule Three: I'm allowed to suck. I totally stole that from Mur Lafferty. But I need it. It gave me the permission to overlook my insecurities about writing in order to find the courage to follow my first rule...sit down and write. It ties to the next rule...

Rule Four: You can't edit a blank page. I think I heard this somewhere but I don't know the attribution. The words, however, stuck in my head. Crap or not, you can't polish the story unless you have the story down first to edit. And as it turns out, yes, you can polish a turd. I remember this episode of Mythbusters whenever I doubt that my story is good enough to keep working on.

Rule Five: If the doubt tells you to quit altogether, ignore it. Doubts are cheap, and they're found in swarms, especially if you feel you need validation in doing something new with little experience or education in the field of writing. There are always reasons to quit. I need just a few good reasons to keep going.

Rule Six: Carve some time to yourself for writing. I try to work by myself for an hour a day. I hide in the bedroom with a laptop. I make sure I take my lunch hour and type away at the desk. I've taken my laptop with me to Barnes and Noble to sit in their comfy chair with a lapdesk (I happen to have one our B&N no longer sells so I can kind of "prove" I'm not pilfering it from their sales displays) and just type away. I needed to find an environment in which I can half-focus on my story with minimal distraction.

Rule Seven: No editing. I backspace and fix obvious spelling errors. I will fix things that just bug me as they're on the virtual page. But I do not go back and rewrite scenes and pages of work. If I do that, I'll end up spending days, or weeks, or even months trying to get a "perfect opening" or making the entire novel a masterpiece magnum opus. The idea is to get a story out there on the page that can be fixed as needed, then shop it around to agents. Editing can be done after the initial draft is complete. I keep getting a strong urge to rewrite the opening and every time I end up reminding myself of this rule! It can be hard to see obvious blemishes in your baby and have to wait until later to fix them, but the danger of getting "stuck" in fixing the story and never actually finishing the story is way too big for me to hazard this road.

Rule Eight: Tell the story. Grammar, structure, etc...those can be fixed later (see Rule Seven). The important thing is to have a story! Tell your story. The mechanics can be revisited later. The story is the thing. The story is the thing. The story is the thing!

Rule Nine: Keep notes. I don't keep copious notes, but I do keep enough to go back and spruce certain things up. I keep notes on full names of characters as I introduce them in the story (you don't want to change a character midway through because you forgot if you used Matthew or Mathew as the given name...makes search and replace more difficult as well.) If you add a particular plot point or device in the story, you probably don't want to forget about it. In my case I'm keeping a text file with my notes in the same folder as the file containing the story.

Rule Ten: Make backups. I'll wager most writers now are using those new-fangled computers on which to write. Computers fail. Hardware is stolen, damaged, or data gets corrupted. Do yourself a favor and get a USB flash drive. Edit your work, and immediately save it elsewhere. Personally I have my notes and current draft on my main computer and on a USB drive, and the version on the computer gets backed up to three external hard drives. If my house burns down I may lose the draft, but I still am protected against most failures of hardware and most incidences of corruption. If you're laboring over a 100,000 page manuscript plus notes plus editing time...isn't the investment in some external storage for copying your work periodically really just a drop in the bucket? It's insurance against losing your work. I see no reason whatsoever to feel bad for 90% of writers that have data loss that destroys their work in progress when the ability to make copies is cheap and simple. "I don't know how" is not really an excuse anymore. If you're talking about writing as anything more than a hobby, then making backups of your livelihood is just part of the cost of doing business!

Rule Eleven: Write consistently to keep the ball rolling. If you decide to take a break, suddenly you forget what your protagonist was doing, or you forgot some detail that was important at the time (how did your hero pull a knife on the antagonist when he strapped on a gun before leaving his apartment?). It can be argued that these belong in the notes; they probably do. My way of working means that if it's an immediate detail I normally remember it the next day, while notes are made for things that will keep popping up or will be important a week from now. Taking a break of a few days in a row means you probably have to really push yourself to get back behind the keyboard and write again, just like skipping the gym a few days means needing that pep talk to get dressed to work out, shuffle to the car, drive to the gym...writing has enough challenges. You don't need to force yourself into a pep talk to do something you should be enjoying.

Rule Twelve: Write while you enjoy it. If you enjoy your story you increase the chances that your reader will enjoy it. I think that when it comes to fiction (or non-fiction, I suppose) you end up pushing some of your enthusiasm for the subject or story onto the reader. They pick up where you lose interest, and they know when your heart just isn't into it anymore. A good story should draw in the writer as much as the reader. If it fails to do so, you need to reevaluate the plot points and see why you're not caring about the protagonist and his or her journey through your created world.

Rule 13: Progress is progress. I have a goal of 500 words a day. I actually have come to expect 1,000+ words a day. There are some days where I fall short...like, a couple hundred words are all I manage to tap out before I have to call it quits for one reason or another. But that one or two hundred words are one or two hundred words more than that manuscript started the day with. I can't beat myself up over that. There are good days and bad days. The important thing is to keep making progress and keep getting a little farther ahead. As a result there are actually very very few days where I've made zero progress on the story, and I've had a few days that were only a couple hundred words and I have had a few days where I really surpassed my average by a significant margin. If I fall short one day...make it up later. I can't dwell on my shortcomings or I'll never finish the first draft!

I'm not a published author. I'm on the first steps towards trying to achieve that goal. I may fail miserably, and you can take my rules for what they're worth. In my world they have helped sustain me through many a doubt and many a fear, and I've written over one hundred thousand words with these rules in mind. I'm sure that as I go along I'll need to modify or add to these rules. For right now, at this stage in the game, I'm sticking to these. What do you think? Are there rules you use or rules you think should be altered here?