Ten rules for writing

I loved this: "10 rules for writing", which I found on the Guardian site. It's a great collection of authors and their tips (of which there are frequently less than 10, and which in total probably add up to about 112 in total) (I think of them as tips, not rules) (that'll be my first rule as a writer, no rules, only tips)(also I should probably make a rule for myself about brackets).

Some of them are brilliant, some of them you already know, some of them aren't for me, some of them are simply writers saying how they write.

Here are the ones that speak to me. They're not my favourites (the funny ones by Margaret Atwood and Colm Tóibín) but these are the ones that should post-it-noted all over my desk:

Annie Proulx

1 Proceed slowly and take care.

Rose Tremain

5 When an idea comes, spend silent time with it. Remember Keats's idea of Negative Capability and Kipling's advice to "drift, wait and obey". Along with your gathering of hard data, allow yourself also to dream your idea into being.

6 In the planning stage of a book, don't plan the ending. It has to be earned by all that will go before it.

7 Respect the way characters may change once they've got 50 pages of life in them. Revisit your plan at this stage and see whether certain things have to be altered to take account of these changes.

Roddy Doyle

5 Do restrict your browsing to a few websites a day. Don't go near the online bookies – unless it's research.

Helen Dunmore

7 A problem with a piece of writing often clarifies itself if you go for a long walk.

Neil Gaiman

1 Write.

2 Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down.

3 Finish what you're writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.

PD James

2 Read widely and with discrimination. Bad writing is contagious.