The Best Writing Tips I Wish I Had Known From The Very Beginning!

I was going to comment on this post and then I realised that a) I had too much to say about it and b) my comments would get lost in the envy-inducing welter of comments below. So I’m reblogging it here. I particularly like 1 and 4 and if I had to pick a favourite it’d be point 1. I have spent the last ten years telling myself to hurry up, hurry up or else I’ll be dead before I’m famous (or achieve anything worthwhile). Writing is not one mountain to climb but a whole range; first there’s carving out a routine, then there’s finding your own voice, then writing something worthwhile, then editing it and then, when the damned thing is just about perfect or as near as you can make it, trying to publish the bloody thing. But at the end of those ten years I realise that it is indeed necessary to slow down in order to produce good art