Best advice from successful writers

The Guardian had a great article on the 10 Rules for writing Fiction which I found through Billy Coffee's Tweet. "Ain't technology grand?"

So here are some special favorites...

Elmore Leonard: My most important rule is one that sums up the 10: if it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.

Margaret Atwood:  5 Do back exercises. Pain is distracting.

Roddy Doyle

1 Do not place a photograph of your ­favourite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide

Helen Dunnore

2 Listen to what you have written. A dud rhythm in a passage of dialogue may show that you don't yet understand the characters well enough to write in their voices.

Anne Enright

3 Only bad writers think that their work is really good.

4 Description is hard. Remember that all description is an opinion about the world. Find a place to stand.

Jonathan Franzen

1 The reader is a friend, not an adversary, not a spectator.

2 Fiction that isn't an author's personal adventure into the frightening or the unknown isn't worth writing for anything but money.

3 Never use the word "then" as a ­conjunction – we have "and" for this purpose. Substituting "then" is the lazy or tone-deaf writer's non-solution to the problem of too many "ands" on the page.

4 Write in the third person unless a ­really distinctive first-person voice ­offers itself irresistibly.

9 Interesting verbs are seldom very interesting.

Neil Gaiman

5 Remember: when people tell you something's wrong or doesn't work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.

PD James

1 Increase your word power. Words are the raw material of our craft. The greater your vocabulary the more ­effective your writing. We who write in English are fortunate to have the richest and most versatile language in the world. Respect it.

Well... you get the idea. Thank you Billy Coffee for point out this treasure trove of good advice. Thank you authors for taking the time to expose some of our most  ragged vulnerability as writers and authors.