"the box in question" by devi laskar

13 Rules for Becoming a Published Writer

1. Read books like the kind you hope to write. Read, read, read.

2. Buy books if you hope one day to sell them.

3. As Al Capone said of voting: Write early and often.

4. Expect readers like you—as smart, as likely to buy something self-published or from a stranger’s web site (really, do you?), as interested in being engaged, even entertained.

5. Become an unbelievably good and fast editor of your own work. How? Edit lots of other people’s work, with generous care. It’s so much easier to see what isn’t working and why when the pages aren’t your own. (When you know you are a great editor, you’re willing to get out of your own way during early drafting, which is usually terrible, because you know you can make it better.)

6. Become a public writer. Once you’ve got a killer writing habit that everyone in your life tiptoes around (or at any rate, you write early and often), develop another habit on the publishing side: Go to open mikes and read; submit your work; hell, you might even blog.

7. If you don’t feel confident, fake it.

8. Learn what you need to know about marketing by supporting other authors, by creating events and readings to promote their books.

9. If you are a perfectionist, learn to grow in public, to put the writing out there before it’s perfect.

10. If you are not a perfectionist, go over your manuscript three times more than you think you can stand.

11. Collect rejections like trophies. James Joyce papered his bathroom with them. Stephen King punched his on a thick nail drive into the wall.  Set a goal for how many rejects you can get in one month. In one year.

12. Successful people receive more rejections that unsuccessful people.

13. Celebrate your successes. Revel in them. Enjoy them.

Then go back to Rule #1 and keep on going . . .

And come visit one of my writing classes for free next week: https://bookwritingworld.com/writingcraft/

Elizabeth Stark is the author of the novel Shy Girl (FSG, Seal Press) and co-director and co-writer of several short films, including FtF: Female to Femme and Little Mutinies (both distributed by Frameline). She earned an M.F.A. from Columbia University in Creative Writing. Currently the lead mentor and teacher at the Book Writing World, she’s taught writing and literature at UCSC, Pratt Institute, the Peralta Colleges, Hobart & William Smith Colleges and St. Mary’s College. She’s at work on a novel about Kafka.