February 25, 2010 · 10:35 am

the rules

In response to the Guardian (not to say Elmore Leonard), Tim Howard has new advice for would-be writers. This Machine Kills Purists is a serial offender where the Grauniad book pages are concerned, having produced a sly piece earlier in the month.

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4 Responses to the rules

  1. Lara
    February 25, 2010 at 1:30 pm

    thanks for this link. hilarious. (and a bit spooky as i wade through a huge review… delete all uses of word ‘craft’ and ‘text’ and …. oh god …)

  2. Brendan Byrne
    February 25, 2010 at 4:18 pm

    This is a much better approach than the one I’ve been adopting which is to stare deathly into the eyes of whoever has cited ‘the rules’ and say, “The only rule is to do whatever the fuck you want.”

  3. uzwi
    February 25, 2010 at 4:26 pm

    Oh, I don’t know, Brendan, seems very satisfactory to me. I wrote a set of counter-rules which ended : “10. You’re responsible for yourself. Write or don’t write.” A similar point.

  4. uzwi
    February 25, 2010 at 4:58 pm

    Crooked Timber are now having fun with this, here–

    http://tinyurl.com/yex5j9t

    Love the Wodehouse quotes.