Serious:
You
can approach the act of writing with nervousness, excitement,
hopefulness, or even despair—the sense that you can never completely
put on the page what's in your mind and heart. You can come to the act
with your fists clenched and your eyes narrowed, ready to kick ass and
take down names. You can come to it because you want a girl to marry
you or because you want to change the world. Come to it any way but
lightly. Let me say it again: you must not come lightly to the blank
page.
—Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
On the lighter side:
Do not put statements in the negative form.
And don't start sentences with a conjunction.
If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a
great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.
Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all.
De-accession euphemisms.
If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.
—William Safire, Great Rules of Writing
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