This past May, we lost another literary giant, English author and satirist Martin Amis.
(August 25, 1949 -May 19, 2023)
The author of 15 novels, as well as essays, articles, and literary criticism collected in eight volumes, Martin Amis was perhaps best known for his 1973 breakout novel “The Rachel Papers”, and a trilogy of London novels: The 1985 “Money: A Suicide Note,” the 1990 “London Fields” and the 1995 “The Information.” He was also the son of famed author Kingsley Amis, one of the “angry young men” — novelists and playwrights who changed the course of British literature in the 1950s. Martin’s caustic, erudite, and bleakly comic novels redefined British fiction in the 1980s and 90s, targeting tabloid culture and consumer excess while summing up the angst and absurdity of his generation.
Martin Amis’s 16 Rules For Writers:
- Write in long-hand: when you scratch out a word, it still exists there on the page. On the computer, when you delete a word it disappears forever. This is important because usually, your first instinct is the right one.
- Minimum number of words to write every day: no “quota”: Sometimes it will be no words. Sometimes it will be 1500.
- Use any anxiety you have about your writing — or your life — as fuel: “Ambition and anxiety: that’s the writer’s life.”
- Never say ‘sci-fi.’ You’ll enrage purists. Call it SF.
- Don’t dumb down: always write for your top five percent of readers.
- Never pun your title, simpler is usually better: “Lolita turns out to be a great title; couldn’t be simpler.”
- At Manchester University (where he teaches creative writing) my rule is I don’t look at their work. We read great books, and we talk about them … We look at Conrad, Dostoyevsky.
- When is an idea worth pursuing in novel-form? “It’s got to give you a kind of glimmer.”
- Watch out for words that repeat too often.
- Don’t start a paragraph with the same word as the previous one. That goes doubly for sentences.
- Stay in the tense.
- Inspect your ‘hads’ and see if you really need them.
- Never use ‘amongst. Never use ‘whilst.’ Anyone who uses ‘whilst’ is subliterate.
- Try not to write sentences that absolutely anyone could write.
- You write the book you want to read. That’s my rule.
- You have to have a huge appetite for solitude.
A Happy Birthday to Ernest Hemingway, born July 21, 1899
Our Right To Write 
“Ambition and Anxiety” truer words were never spoken
They do go hand in hand, especially while writing.
Sad news but nice to meet you today through Gabriela💗
And a pleasure to meet you as well!
Thank you so very much💕
💕
Good tips👍!