1. Never stop writing for any reason. If you want to be a writer and you write, then you’re a writer. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
2. Remember that you’re intense; otherwise you wouldn’t be able to write and create emotions in other people. Face it, you’re a bit needier than most people, but that’s ok. So when your girlfriend wants to sleep instead of read your 1000 page science fiction novel late some Sunday night, just be ok with that and leave it at the edge of the bed, she’ll read it eventually.
3. Get a day job to help support your dream, because while the world is becoming smaller via the internet, it’s a big wide world with lots of people just like you and every once and a while a publisher picks a new fish to stake a claim in. Don’t let that 80th rejection letter make you forget rule #1. Don’t ever stop blogging, journaling, or creating worlds, keep at it, share it, and hey at least the bills are being paid by that other career path. Plus jobs keep us sharp, give us ideas, and inspire poems and short stories.
4. EDIT EDIT EDIT EDIT, OMG EDIT!
5. Learn the publishing business. Forget about Writer’s Market, learn the internet, social media, blogging, print on demand. This is a brave new world and you need to learn about it.
6. If people aren’t truly supportive of your passion, find people that are. Don’t forget that means you have to be equally geeked out and passionate about their passion. That may mean you’ll have to listen to hours of strategy in regard to Dragon Age or card games or guitar riffs, but it’ll pay off when they geek out on the mythology for your crazy little fantasy series!
7. If people say you have ‘bad grammar’ ignore them, they don’t understand what the word means. If they say “Your use of syntax is a little off try this ____”, listen, they totally know what they’re talking about.
8. Indie is cool now, it doesn’t mean you failed! Publishing is like the music industry, it has gone digital and those kids that used to covet bootleg music are going to seek out unknown or nonmainstream writers and dig your work over the latest version of The Secret.
9. No matter how cool people may someday think you or your work is, remember what it was like to be a starving artist. Don’t be a dick to a kid that wants your autograph or a housewife that wants you to read their manuscript. Doesn’t mean you can’t have boundaries, just don’t be a jerk about it.
10. Be nice to other writers. Don’t say “so and so isn’t a writer”, who the fuck are you to say that anyway? Writing is an art just like any other. So if some chicks wanna get over fights about Edward and Jacob, let them, that’s their thing, doesn’t matter if I couldn’t get to page two in that series, it belongs to them now.
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