How to be a Great Writer

Setting Up Your Lifestyle

1. Get a rich husband or wife. Why should you bother with a day job or (snicker) marrying for love? Psh, that is so last season! Instead, go out and find yourself a super-rich spouse. Good places to look include fancy-schmancy restaurants, business man conventions, celebrities' doctors or massage therapists, and Hollywood. Just walk around until you see a man or woman by his or herself, stroll up to him or her, and pour on the charm! It's so easy, Bella Swan could do it! And she did! (Hint: Men are fans of women randomly running up to them and stroking their stubble, and women are fans of men shoving them into dark alleys and whispering in a deep, throaty voice, "I love you.")

2. Convince your rich spouse to buy you a mansion. A good way to start the conversation is as follows:

You (at 3:00 in the morning, tapping Spouse on shoulder): Hi, honey, let's get a mansion.
Spouse: *grunts*
You: Oh, I'm so glad you agree! I'll go over and sign some papers now, okay?
Spouse: *grunts*

Easy as pie, right? I told you! Writing is super-easy when you know what you're doing.

3. Never have kids. Ever. Kids are messy and irritating and expensive. You have to drive them to school and to various activities and clothe them and feed them and listen to their stories, complaints, whines, laughter (ugh! the laughing!), pleads for even more driving-ness, clothes, and food. It's simply not worth it. And seriously, why spend money on raising a kid when you can just buy a nice printer or a pretty new laptop?

4. Set up a schedule, and stick to it. Everyone knows how annoying it is to write first thing in the day. The best thing to do is to procrastinate. Here is a good example of a schedule:

1. Wake up, eat breakfast, and contemplate the mysteries of life as the maids clean the house.
2. Go to the spa.
3. Take a nap.
4. Call up some friends and get together for lunch. Be sure to show off your brand-new limousine!
5. Go to the spa again.
6. Take a really, really long nap.
7. Have your live-in and super-hot massage therapist, your super-hot manicurist, and your super-hot pedicurist work on you.
8. Eat the fantastic dinner the maids made. (See what I did there?)
9. Take a long, luxurious bubble bath. 
10. Go to the hot tub, with the massage therapist, manicurist, and pedicurist.
11. Write. But only if you feel like it. Otherwise, go to bed.

The Writing Itself

1. Description. Description is the most important part of writing. You need your readers to be able to visualize everything, and I mean everything. Consider the following passage:

He sat down at the table and took out an unsharpened pencil from his pocket. Sweeping a brown lock of hair out of his eyes, he reached forward and sharpened the pencil.

It's okay, but it doesn't have nearly enough description. Now consider this:

He sat down at the table. His dark blue jeans crinkled a little as he sat, the price tag still swinging close by the dark brown belt. He leaned against the back of the chair, his white t-shirt pressing against it. Millions of bacteria transferred from the furniture to his clothes to his body. He reached his fish-stick fingers into his pocket and removed an unsharpened pencil. The pencil was long and yellow, exquisite in its beauty, and the end was as blunt as a miser's heart. Slowly, he leaned forward and placed the end of the pencil, lovingly, into the mouth of the electric sharpener. His ears rang with the grating hums of the sharpener, and a brown lock of hair fell into his brilliant turquoise eyes. He brushed it away with a quick flick of the back of his hand, the tiny hairs on his knuckles briefly coming into contact with his silky smooth scalp.

So much better, right? I know, I know. I'm a genius.

2. Metaphors and similes. They are so important! I can't possibly stress it enough. Consider:

The sky was blue.

Now consider:

The sky was as blue as a dead-by-hypothermia baby's cold flesh.

Doesn't it add so much?

Over to you! What other tips should be included on How to be a Great Writer?

The sky was