1. Be sure to have a life chock full of experiences--mostly bad and some good. You need something to write about. One writer turned his unpleasant childhood experiences into three science fiction/fantasy novels.

2. Give of yourself to others--quite often they'll take advantage of you or hurt you. Insight into the actions of others is always useful for character development.

3. Remain unemployed a year or more--lots of interesting happenings in the unemployment line. This gives you time to write and complain about your lot in life. Write every day.

4. So, now you're out of work. Financial ruin stares you in the face--a great motivator for writing and actually putting your work in the mail.

5. Be sure to have at least one great and devastating love affair--useful for one or two good short stories. Is it better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all?

6. Embrace depression or, better yet, mental instability--always good for a poem or three, or maybe a dark fantasy. One writer had a fantasy about killing her ex-husband and turned it into a murder mystery.

7. Cherish your writing time. Snarl at friends and family who would pry you away from your scattered scraps of paper.

8. Read lots of books about how to write. The conflicting advice contained therein will thoroughly confuse you.

9. Be sure to send off the first drafts of you're your work. This almost always guarantess rejection. Gleefully count your rejection slips often. These slips validate the fact that you're a writer!

10. Okay. You've cut yourself off from friends and family. Your heart is breaking. Perhaps you're suicidal. You're also confused, rejected, and dejected. You have all the material you need for at least three poems and one or two good short stories. You are finally ready to write.

Testimonial: After I followed these simple guidelines, I garnered not one, but two acceptances. One publisher even paid one cent per word. What a life!

Note:
This essay appeared in the November 1996 issue of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Workshop Newsletter. It also appeared in the Spring 1996 issue of Just Write Magazine and the 1994 issue of an Ozark Triangle Press publication.

How to Become a Writer in Ten Easy Lessons Copyright © 1994 Lida E. Quillen. All rights reserved. This essay appears in an anthology of the author's work, Studies in Genre, a shareware ebook currently available from Twilight Times Books.