Afraid of success? We can fix that. Are you tired of succeeding in this writing game? Below is my tried-and-true 12-step method of making sure you don't get stuck working as a professional writer for the rest of your life. 1. Turn off grammar and spellcheck in your writing program. Spell words however the hell you want to spell them. It's your work. Be exprimental and break boundaries. Rules are for suckers. 2. Don't write more than two drafts of any particular work. More than two and you'll lose the magic. Be raw. 3. Disregard critical comments your critique group partners and beta readers make. It's all due to jealousy anyway. 4. List all the agents you've queried on your blog, and their response times, so other writers will know not to query agents who take too long. 5. When you query an agent and the agent declines to read a full or a partial, let her know what a golden opportunity she has missed out on. When you're famous, instant karma w...

How to Take Criticism, or How I Learned to Stop Plotting the Deaths of My Critique Group Members and Love Their Feedback Instead Image by Mr Clementi , via Flickr I’ve been a member of a critique group for almost a year. In that time, they’ve helped me slog through the second draft of one manuscript, helped me plot my next story, and advised me on the first draft of a new manuscript. They often give me specific feedback that I don’t like. They tell me my characters’ motivations are muddy, my sentence structure is clunky, and I don’t show enough of my protagonist’s reactions to events. When I used to hear these criticisms, it’s not that I necessarily wanted to murder them, I simply daydreamed about interesting accidents that may or may not befall them. Just daydreaming… I’m not a monster, after all. But all that murderousness abated when I learned how to leave my ego at home. My words are my teeny tiny textual babies. They are sacred to me. When I pour my blood, sweat, an...