It is entirely sensible to assume that an infrequently published writer should not ever offer writing advice. Especially when one’s writing career to date accounts for only a thousand dollars or thereabouts in lifetime sales. So let’s be discrete about the subject, and segregate “writing advice” from “getting published” advice for a moment so I can cobble together a few paraphrased plagiarized points on writing from my favorite teachers. Hopefully this list will be short.

1: Read/Breathe.

Reading is to writing as inhaling is to exhaling. Which is to say that all writers worth reading inhale books and then spew poisonous carbon dioxide onto their readers, or something like that. Read, read, read! 

2: Shut The Fuck Up And Write. (STFUAW) 

Write at your desk, Write in your bed. Write in a coffee shop with a plastic doughnut out on top. Write sitting on a log, write while holding a purse-dog. Write in the passenger seat of your car, write in the smoking section of a biker bar. Write while on a crowded transpacific airplane, write with your butt on the bathtub drain.  You don’t need a big polished oak desk and ambient music and perfect lighting and aroma-therapeutic candles and a blended ice chai latte and a gold tipped quill ink pen and leather bound parchment and . . . You get the point yes? Minimize distractions as best you can, then write. EVERY day. It’s nice if you can write at the same time and the same place uninterrupted every day, but  the only important thing is that you write, every day. 

3. Write despite.

Write despite the fact that you’re not a professionally trained and licensed Writer. Write despite the fact that invariably someone else may read your work. Write despite the critics who may tell you that you are a terrible writer and that you should give it up, go get lost out in the woods, and get bitten by a rabid animal and die an agonizing death all alone. Write despite not having any inspiration, write about what you’re writing about, write a blog entry on how to write (ahem) or write about how you can’t write anything at all, making yourself an instant liar.  Just WRITE. It’s ok. You have my permission. I have your "License To Write" form in my desk drawer. 

4. Repeat step one.