By Joseph Ridgwell.
Aloha weirdies and fellow freaks of death. Here’s a groovy list of tip-top tips to becoming a fully fledged wordsmith, man or woman of letters, scribe, or just a plain and simple good old-fashioned writer. In reverse order, got it:
1. Do not, under any circumstances, attend a creative writing course, retreat, or evening class. These are for mentally disturbed people, whose close proximity may cause you to become depressed.
2. Read like a mother-fucker. Anything from advanced Arithmetic to Astrophysics. Read all the greats of literature as they will teach you a good deal. Do not read any current bestsellers. This type of book can do serious damage to the creative soul of any budding artist.
3. Do not listen to the opinions of anyone who works in the publishing industry. These freaks don’t know what the fuck they are doing. They must be ignored at all times and often derided for their stunning ignorance of what constitutes a writer. This includes all editors, literary agents, slush-pile flunkies, and the PA girl whose father is rich and her mother good-looking, but is as thick as two short planks.
4. Never ever plagiarise, but do steal. Theft in literature is a virtue.
5. Write every single day for a solid ten years. After that do what the fuck you like.
6. Do not expect to earn any money whatsoever. Harbouring such a delusion can only end in tears and you may end up looking like this geezer:
7. Do not be overly influenced by any writer you may or may not admire, including me, in fact especially me. This will lead to imitation, which is to be avoided at all costs.
8. Be afraid, very afraid of academics and academia. This is a one way route to complete and utter failure as an artist. Thou hast been warned.
9. Live a little. Travel the world, get out of the comfort zone, take a trip to the edge, shoot a man in reno, consume a mountain of drugs, get boozy all the time, as drink brings luck to a writer, take part in an orgy, fuck both sexes in the arse, howl at the moon, one arm waving free, the other holding a bottle of wine, swim naked in the ocean, go dancing, sleep out under the stars, go a wandering, climb a volcano, sing rebel songs into the long-lost night, watch a sunrise, sunset, cloud view… Get the freaking idea, fuckers?
10. Last, but not least. Don’t try.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joseph Ridgwell is the author of two books of poetry, Load the Guns and Where are the Rebels? Both published by Blackheath Books and a novel, Last Days of the Cross published by Grievous Jones Press. His work has also appeared in short story anthologies Radgepacket and The Loose Canon, magazines, newspapers, and numerous online publications. He will be reading at the forthcoming Degenerate Sweethearts & Rebel Scum at the Coach and Horses, Soho, on Saturday the 3rd of July.
