Rules for writing fiction

There's a huge list that I've been enjoying for the past several days, marveling at some good bits of wisdom and scratching my head at what seems like it's meant to be a joke.

Here's Neil Gaiman with wisdom:

The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you're allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it's definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it ­honestly, and tell it as best you can. I'm not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.

The funny, from Will Self:

Regard yourself as a small corporation of one. Take yourself off on team-building exercises (long walks). Hold a Christmas party every year at which you stand in the corner of your writing room, shouting very loudly to yourself while drinking a bottle of white wine. Then masturbate under the desk. The following day you will feel a deep and cohering sense of embarrassment.

And the nutty, from Colm Tóibín

8 On Saturdays, you can watch an old Bergman film, preferably Persona or Autumn Sonata.

9 No going to London.

10 No going anywhere else either.

Read the whole thing.

Thanks to Laurie Thompson for the link.