Jay's Guidelines

[deborahjross]

I love jaylake's GL for writing more (slightly condensed so you will of course hie yourself to his LJ to read more...

• Write something every week. (A story, a chapter, something discrete and measurable.)


• Finish everything you start.


• Don't self-critique while you're writing.


• Work on one thing at a time. (In my case, a novel, a short story, a collab and a nonfiction project can all run in parallel. But if I work on two of the same thing, the voice bleeds over and I lose track of continuity.)

I would add, "Don't read anyone else's work that's too close to what you're writing." For me, this doesn't affect output per se, but it can distort my own voice and vision and then what I write is such meandering derivative crap I might as well have not bothered.