1. You should never be in awe of your own style.
  2. Writer’s indecision= writer’s block
  1. You have to write anything first, just like what Francois Sagan said ‘ I have to write to begin to think’ it may help a lot for you.
  1. It eats imagination to think about money so better forget about it first.
  1. The most important part of the novel that you write is the first page.
  1. Fact: no-one has ever won the Booker Prize apart from Hilary Mantel, and you are not Hilary Mantel so better know that you won’t win the Booker Prize.
  1. The end lasts forever and the first draft is the beginning of the end.
  1. It’s the word you choose not to use and it isn’t the words you choose to use.
  1. Adverbs dilute.
  1. Lower your expectations and start raising your efforts.
  1. You’ll never know real negativity until you tell people you are writing a novel, so just ignore discouragement. Never let negativities get into you.
  1. A function is the greatest miracle since the wheel and track changes.
  1. You should write as though your mom will never read it.
  1. Think about what you want the words to achieve and forget about what you want the book to achieve.
  1. Be ship-shape. An ocean liner might be big, but all the screws need to be tight. Or you end up drowning. So, y’know, observe each sentence as if it was the only one.
  1. It’s acceptable to write about people you know, as long as you change their names.
  1. You are in trouble if you write about a dog and that dog dies.
  1. Jeanette Winterson once told me to change the phrase ‘epiphanic moment’ to ‘moment of epiphany’. That is the single greatest piece of advice anyone has ever given.
  2. That it will be the best book you can write if you write about a book you most want to read.
  3. If you write in the first person, people will think that the views of that person are your own views. Don’t let that stop you writing Hitler’s fictional autobiography. I just thought you should know.
  4. It will infect you with greatness if you read about Graham Greene.
  1. The hardest bit of writing always comes at the 30,000 word mark. Keep going. After 50,000 the hill slopes in your favor.
  1. You’ll notice more mistakes if you read it aloud.
  1. Love is the most important ingredient. Love of words. Of your characters and their flaws. Of truth. You are playing God, but it has to be a loving God.
  1. Enjoy it! There is nothing as exciting in this world as roaming the beautiful wilds of the human imagination. There really isn’t.