Writers: What are your thoughts on these 'writers rules'?

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1) Which are you more likely to agree with:
- Don't wait for inspiration. Discipline is the key. (Esther Freud)?
- Write only when you have something to say. (David Hare)?

I'm siding with Freud. Sure, you need inspiration and imagination to start a story, but discipline is what ends it. If you do it every day, make a habit of it, then even on the days when you're girlfriends just dumped you and you failed an important test, you won't forget to write. And that's what finishes a story.

2) What are your thoughts on:
- Always carry a notebook. And I mean always. The short-term memory only retains information for three minutes; unless it is committed to paper you can lose an idea for ever. (Will Self)

Hahahaha, this is my own personal philosophy! :D I handwrite, you see, and really do carry my notebook everywhere. To school (to write in the break between classes), whenever I travel, to a restaurant to write while waiting for food XD), to the beach...This is excellent advice, and I always abide by it.

3) 'Decide when in the day (or night) it best suits you to write, and organize your life accordingly. (Andrew Motion)' - do you think that choosing a time for writing or a place for writing is important to get yourself in 'the zone' or just another excuse to waste time?

It's an excuse to waste time, in my opinion. What I used to do, I used to tell myself that I couldn't do any more writing past midnight because it was too late and all my writing would come out very well. Boy, was that a half-assed excuse. A couple of days ago I really did get in 'the zone' and stayed up until two. I think I actually wrote the best part of my novel so far. But it's not always like that. Sometimes I write well at school, sometimes at my local cafe...It depends on your state of mind more than anything else.

4) Which are you more likely to agree with:
- Don't hold on to poor work. If it was bad when it went in the drawer it will be just as bad when it comes out. (Jeanetter Winterson)?
- Remember there is no such thing as nonsense. (Andrew Motion)?

Firstly, I'd like to add that this Andrew fellow has an awesome surname, and then I'd like to agree with him. There is bad writing; there is no such thing as bad ideas. Good writing can make even the worst ideas excellent and intriguing, and if I pick up an old, clichéd, Mary Sue-ish story with vampires from when I was 12, who says I can't turn it into something better. I'd kill the Mary Sue, for one, I'd turn the vampires into banshees (because no one appreciates banshees anymore), but I'd keep the original characters and the original plotline.

5) Work on a computer that is disconnected from the ­internet. (Zadie Smith) - not exactly, do you agree with this or not, but rather, do you do this already?

I don't work on a computer at all. If the Internet is connected, I wind up going to Yahoo! Answers or YouTube, and if the Internet isn't connected, I wind up playing solitaire. Nah, I handwrite, and only use the computer when I need to research something.

Oh, and by the way, Happy Easter to you all!...Show more

1) Which are you more likely to agree with:
- Don't wait for inspiration. Discipline is the key. (Esther Freud)?
- Write only when you have something to say. (David Hare)?

95% for the first one. If you wait for inspiration to come, days, weeks, months, and years could go by. I have found that inspiration comes best when I actively chase after it and just write.

2) What are your thoughts on:
- Always carry a notebook. And I mean always. The short-term memory only retains information for three minutes; unless it is committed to paper you can lose an idea for ever. (Will Self)

This is a good idea, no question, but there will always be situations when you cannot carry a notebook. If you get inspiration while swimming, try to depend on short-term memory.

3) 'Decide when in the day (or night) it best suits you to write, and organise your life accordingly. (Andrew Motion)' - do you think that choosing a time for writing or a place for writing is important to get yourself in 'the zone' or just another excuse to waste time?

"Organize your life accordingly." Yeah, right. This is not exactly realistic when you have a job, a family, and a house to care for. I can see myself telling my kids and wife, "Don't bother me. This is my writing time." Oh, sure, that would fly. Honestly, I pretty much know when I will have free time, and I use that to write, but it is never a "set" time.

4) Which are you more likely to agree with:
- Don't hold on to poor work. If it was bad when it went in the drawer it will be just as bad when it comes out. (Jeanetter Winterson)?
- Remember there is no such thing as nonsense. (Andrew Motion)?

First drafts are always "poor" works. If after the tenth or eleventh edit it is still "poor", you may want to consider sending it to the literary graveyard in the recycling bin.

5) Work on a computer that is disconnected from the ­internet. (Zadie Smith) - not exactly, do you agree with this or not, but rather, do you do this already?

I wish I could bring my old Smith-Corona typewriter back from the dead. Since I can't, the computer it is....Show more

1) Which are you more likely to agree with:
- Don't wait for inspiration. Discipline is the key. (Esther Freud)? -- I do agree with this one, sometimes you just have to plod on. Inspiration is an elusive B**** at times.

- Write only when you have something to say. (David Hare)? --Isn't this the same thing as inspiration? Luckily, it's my characters talking, not me.

2) What are your thoughts on:
- Always carry a notebook. And I mean always. The short-term memory only retains information for three minutes; unless it is committed to paper you can lose an idea for ever. (Will Self) -- Yes love this idea. Even a small memo pad you can fit in a pocket or a purse. I've lost some ideas for not having something like that on me.

3) 'Decide when in the day (or night) it best suits you to write, and organise your life accordingly. (Andrew Motion)' - do you think that choosing a time for writing or a place for writing is important to get yourself in 'the zone' or just another excuse to waste time?

--it's another excuse to waist time. You can't always organize your life around writing. Work, family, and education sometimes have to take priority. Sometimes you'll be lucky to get 30 minutes a day in. Though, I personally tend to focus less on 'time' than on a word count. We all have different preferences though, if you can't write with noise, only write at home or somewhere where quiet is enforced. If you thrive in chaos, malls, coffee shops (etc) are your bread and butter.

4) Which are you more likely to agree with:
- Don't hold on to poor work. If it was bad when it went in the drawer it will be just as bad when it comes out. (Jeanetter Winterson)?

--- No I always hold on to work because you can always edit to make it better...or if nothing else to see how far I have come. I think that's horrible advice.

- Remember there is no such thing as nonsense. (Andrew Motion)?

-- I'd say there is such a thing as nonsense, considering that there is some awful writing/plots/stories floating around.

5) Work on a computer that is disconnected from the ­internet. (Zadie Smith) - not exactly, do you agree with this or not, but rather, do you do this already?

--I do not do this....Show more

1) Which are you more likely to agree with:
- Don't wait for inspiration. Discipline is the key. (Esther Freud)?
I wholeheartedly agree with this. Inspiration is definitely the key to starting and even planning a story. But I think when it comes down to actually writing the words on paper, inspiration is only a tiny bit of it.

2) What are your thoughts on:
- Always carry a notebook. And I mean always. The short-term memory only retains information for three minutes; unless it is committed to paper you can lose an idea for ever. (Will Self)
Hm. I think it is probably helpful. But I don't think it's completely necessary. If I am struck with an idea that I think is so brilliant that I need to write it down, I'm going to remember it regardless.

3) 'Decide when in the day (or night) it best suits you to write, and organise your life accordingly. (Andrew Motion)' - do you think that choosing a time for writing or a place for writing is important to get yourself in 'the zone' or just another excuse to waste time?
A little of both actually. I do find that I am more productive in certain times of the day. But, I feel limiting myself to just that time of day is an excuse to waste more time. I could be like, oh well it's not two am yet, I guess I can just procrastinate since it's not my time yet. Besides, the more you write only during the time, the harder is will be to break the habit. So I try to write in as many different times a day I can.


4) Which are you more likely to agree with:
- Remember there is no such thing as nonsense. (Andrew Motion)?
Always keep everything. It's all progress. It's nice to look back and see how you've improved. And who knows, perhaps you think it's terrible in one minute get rid of it, and then decide it's not so bad. I never ever throw any of my work away.

5) Work on a computer that is disconnected from the ­internet. (Zadie Smith) - not exactly, do you agree with this or not, but rather, do you do this already?
I don't. I actually cannot concentrate unless the internet is connected. Whether I am writing or not, I need to have the internet on....Show more

1. Write only when you have something to say. But coming up with that requires discipline! So they are both right. This is the "writer's block" dilemma. On the one hand, you don't think your ideas are good enough, so you don't write a thing, waiting for perfection. On the other hand, if you just start writing, it won't be as good as it can be. But that's the whole point of revision. Every good author writes multiple versions of the same story. Rarely is it perfect the first time around. The best thing to do is start writing, and realize that it won't be perfect, and you may even end up scrapping it altogether. But the funny thing is, the more you write and re-write it, the more familiar you become with it, and suddenly the better story comes forward.

2. You don't have to carry a notebook, but it does help. Otherwise, if you have a good idea, you had better be prepared to stop everything and write it down. Sometimes the best ideas come when you're on your way to an important meeting or appointment, and the odds are you will NOT remember it later. At least jot down the basic idea. Having a notebook (or even a cell phone) helps. I sometimes call my own home number and leave a message with the idea. (My husband knows to not delete these. And he gets a kick out of it when it's a song idea and I'm singing it on the message, sometimes with just LA LA LA where the lyrics will go. What's funny is sometimes I'll forget that I even did that, and he'll see me later and say "I really liked that song you came up with this morning.")

3. It depends on you and your expectations. If you find you can't get anything written each week because you don't make the time for it, then by all means, dedicate some time and try to make that work. But a lot of writers feel like that forces them to be in the mood at that specific time. There are realy good studies that show our creative energies are the results of multiple processes in our bodies and our experiences that all flow on different rhythms. It's why some schools use varying schedules for classes (A, B, C), where math is period 1 on Monday, 5 on Tuesday, and 7 on Wednesday, then 1 again on Thursday, etc. They found that students learn better when the time periods are switched around. For me, I write when I'm in the mood. Sometimes it's 3 days in a row, other times it's once every 3 weeks!

4. I agree to a point. Yes, if it was bad before, it's not going to suddenly become better. However, I've had plenty of old stories that went no where and suddenly when I read them later, I realize exactly what was wrong with them and NOW I know how to make them better! In fact, there are times I WISH I had a lot of older stories I threw away because I would love to rewrite them now, now that I know more about writing. Ask any artist what they think of their older paintings or works, and a lot of them will look at them with disgust, because years and years later they see every flaw and problem. But, at the time, those same works may have earned all kinds of praise. Then again, it's not unheard of for artists to take a knife to old paintings or smash bad works. So it's a personal preference. I still have a painting that I did when I was 5! It's actually pretty fun to look at.

5. If you're easily distracted (and who isn't), I'd agree. I didn't plan on writing today, but DID have something else on my list... and here I am on Yahoo Answers! Ha ha! But I needed a break....Show more