need to know?

[adelaidesean]

Take a look at Robert J Sawyer's "Eight Things New Writers Need To Know".

Not a response to my ever-evolving 10.5 Commandments post, but a list of things I really wish I'd been told 17 years ago, when I first set out on this crazy adventure.

Every word is gold. It amazes me, for instance, how often people forget numbers 6 and 8. (No one here is guilty of it, I'm sure!)

Thanks to the gang at the Writers of the Future Contest for e-printing this great piece from the contest anthology, Volume XXII.

Comments

[murasaki-1966.livejournal.com]

Glad you like the quote. It's a favourite, and is indeed aboutthe essence of all art and all life. Need any more good quotes? I have lots. I have a database of them....(how very librarian of me).

Another favourite quote about writing is this one from Rainer Maria Rilke

If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches.

I remind myself of this whenever I think my life is boring.

Try and read more Cordwainer Smith. It is worth it. Thre stories you should try to read are "The Colonel came back from the Nothing at All", "the Lady that sailed the Soul", and Ralpha Alpha Boulevard". I 'd lend you my copy of the short stories, but you're in Adelaide and it's very heavy. It's the NESFA edition. Brillant production.