Twelve-step programme to channel the success of J.K. Rowling

1 Believe in your ability to tell a story.
2 Believe in the story that comes to you (and stays).
3 Be inspired by your characters’ history and internal logic.
4. Throw caution to the wind: don’t censor yourself until the story requires it.
5. Plan meticulously, eliminate all loopholes.
6. Get the entire plot from the history–past, present and future–of your main character(s).
7. Never cheat the reader.
8. Know how you write, leave everyone else’s process at the door.
9. Write what you would love to read, now, and at the age of the reader for whom the story is written.
10. Write for your first reader: you.
11. Tell the truth without preaching it.
12. Trust the agenda of the creative process. Abandon your own.

Believe it or not, these twelve points are the exact criteria J.K.Rowling followed to write Harry Potter.

BONUS
Check out Sue Grafton’s essay on keeping a journal.
Read Meg Rosoff’s blog for levity in a world gone mad.