The first rule of Write Club. · 5:09am Jun 17th, 2013

[Text is lifted from this Reddit post. All kudos goes to the original author. I don't agree with 100% of this, but it's a good kick-in-the-butt post, so here it is.]

This week the writer's block is back. Like most writers, I have a desk. It has a snake-neck lamp, unplugged and never lit. It has a wireless printer still in the box. It has a pack of unopened printer paper, never used. It has a warm forgotten beer, never opened.
I would take a picture of these things, but none of them has anything to do with writing. They are the physical manifestation of everything that writing is not. I have never written at this desk, it is not my place for that. But I have written many things.
The first rule of Write Club is that no one gives a shit about your desk. Your desk has nothing to do with your writing. Hemingway wrote in cafes. Stephen King started out at a child's desk that he could barely fit his gangly knees under. Grisham wrote on the subway on steno pads. Chee writes on trains in sleeper cars. Capote wrote in bed. Thomas Clayton Wolfe wrote on the top of a refrigerator.
Try finding pictures of this. With the exception of Capote (that flamboyant bastard) you won't. That's because these people were too busy writing to have their pictures taken.
The second rule of Write Club is that you don't spend more time talking about writing than you spend writing. Of course writers are going to talk about writing, it's inevitable. It's such a lonely job, we are all just solitary creatures of expression howling for some form of validation. But every minute you spend talking about writing is a minute you are spending not writing. And some day - maybe today, maybe one day soon, maybe years from now - you are going to die. So now is the moment you ask: do you want to be remembered as someone who talked about his unfinished novel a lot, or do you want to be remembered as a writer?
The third rule of Write Club is that if you stop, go limp, tap out, and/or give up, based on criticism or laziness or the general inability to effectively manage your lifespan, the writing is over. You can call yourself a writer if you sit around talking about notes and outlines and drinking and reading and musing, but writers do one thing: write. All the time. Short stories. Screenplays. Blogs. Articles. Stageplays. Novels. Writing prompts. Novellas. Books. No matter how shitty your writing is, if you are writing, then you are a writer. If you are not writing, then you are not.
The fourth rule of Write Club is that there are only two people to a story: you against yourself.
The fifth rule of Write Club: one story at a time. Finish it, beat it into submission or have your ass kicked by it, but do not start another story until your story is done.
Sixth rule of Write Club: Your tools don't matter. Pens, pencils, typewriters, cats, writing books, influential novels, highlighters, napkins, index cards, binders, notebooks, Macbooks, laptops, desktops, iPads, iPhones, none of it is worth a flying blue fuck if you're not actively writing on it.
Seventh rule: Submissions will go on as long as they have to. You can work on something for three hours or three years. But do not stop until you are finished with it, do not stop revising it until it is done, and do not stop sending it out (revised) until it is published. See the Fifth rule.
Eighth rule of Write Club - If this is your first night at Write Club, you have to write.
Now shut up and write.
Love,
Ronin