How to be A Writer.

You must be born. You must have opinions. You must have no opinions. You must love literature. You must hate literature. You must have been lied to by your family. You must have lied to your family. You must have gone through many terrible experiences. You must have been through many wonderful experiences. You must know a language. You must be able to commmunicate. You must be shy. You must be verbose. You must love words. You must hate words. You must enjoy simplicity. You must embrace complexity. You must have deceived a lover. You must have been broken by a lover. You need to be male. You need to be female. You need to belong identify with no gender. You need to understand that gender is a fiction. You need to be ignorant of gender studies. You need to be differently abled. You need to use racial epithets for everyone of your colleagues. You must campaign against racism. You must live an enlightened life. You must be a hobo. You must be on the Forbes rich list. You must be an advocate. You must be a coward. You must have a mental illness. You must be financially stable. You must think outside the box. You must live in a box. You must be a box. You must hate everyone. You must hate yourself. You must dabble in the occult. You must be a practising Christian. You must be a professional Muslim. You must be a casual observer. You must be a constant complainer. You must eat food. You must drink liquid. You must be an alcoholic. You must be a drug dealer. You must be able to cook. You must be able to cook meth. You must enjoy baking. You must enjoy being baked. You must be prepared to die for what you believe in. You must love Maeve Binchy. You must love Ernest Hemingway. You must be earnest about Herring. You must hear. You must be hard of hearing. You must be deaf. You must be able to speak. You must be able to remain quiet. You must be prejudiced against everyone. You must be open minded enough to love anyone. You must love spelling things correctly. You must not care about how things are speld or care about grammar or syntax because it doesnt matter. You must be a stickler for details and you must make sure that you are aware of the bigger picture and just let the centre take care of itself whilst looking after the edges of a sentence that has lost it’s full stop. You must hate life. You must love life. You must take lots of drugs both legal and illegal. You must take no drugs. You must be straight edge. You must be a sports fan. You must enjoy the company of others. You must hate everyone. You must hate everything. You must love the world. You must love all of humanity. You must love yourself. You must have a clear plan. You must make it up as you go along. You must have an ending. You must have a beginning. You must have a middle. You must reverse all of these. You must stick to them on pain of death. Don’t listen to advice. Listen to all advice. Learn to write. Learn to read. Listen. Don’t listen. Have a nap. Don’t sleep. Eat cake. Hate yourself. Love yourself. Ignore this advice.