I make my own hours 'cause I'm my own boss

The Guardian UK posted an outstanding article where they asked writers like Neil Gaiman, Annie Proulx, and more to list their Ten Rules of Writing.  You can read the original article here.  I thought that would be fun to do for myself, so here are Ian's Ten Rules for Writing.

1. Write.  If you want to be a writer, you've got to do the work.  That means you put pen to paper or fingers to keys and make things happen.  Anyone can say they want to be a writer, but only real writers get off their asses (metaphorically speaking, of course - not many of us write standing up) and do it.

2. Write all the time.  Even when I'm not actually writing, I'm thinking about my current Work In Progress.  It's a good way to while away the day when I'm doing stuff that actually makes me money.

3. Learn your craft.  There is an art and a knack to telling a story.  Some people got it, and some people don't.  If you don't got it, and you want it, you need to learn.  Take a class.  Study the work of others.  Have others point out your weaknesses so you can address them.  Expunge things like passive voice, overuse of exclamation points/ellipses/hyphens/certain words/adverbs/weird dialogue tags/etc. from your writer's toolbox.  But leave them in the garage, in case you do need to pull one out.

4. Read.  People who are already published have figured out things you haven't yet, and you would do well to pay attention to them.  Read in your genre, which is why I read a lot of comic books.  Also read outside of your genre, which is why I've written so many things that aren't about superheroes.

5. Build your posse/harem.  Find yourself a group of people, preferably also writers, preferably better at it than you, who will read your pile of crap and be merciless in identifying your shortcomings.  Sure, it feels great to have someone stroking your naughty bits and telling you how great you are, but that doesn't help you to improve yourself.  Expect that you will also have to read their piles of crap and do the same for them.  The benefit to that is after you spend a whole novel identifying a problem with their manuscript, you'll have an easy time finding the same problem in your own and have learned a technique for eliminating it.

6. Unless you're writing something which requires a great deal of research (nonfiction, hard science fiction, historical fiction, etc.), don't spend more than five minutes researching anything.  The chances are that 99% of the time, your layperson's knowledge is sufficient, because your readers will be similar to you.

7. Obsessively back up your work.  I use an external hard drive, an online backup, and extra space on my own website, and habitually upload to them constantly.  Use the AutoSave feature on your word processor to save your work every few minutes.  Because of this, I haven't lost any significant amount of work (like more than a page) in years.

8. Have life experiences.  Try new things.  Sleep around.  Visit new restaurants.  Start and end relationships.  Have a family.  Talk to strangers.  Explore.  All of these things will enrich you as a writer, and make you feel better about all the time you spend in solitude, scowling at a computer screen or pad of paper.

9. Go to writers' conferences.  I didn't learn how to take my own game to the next level until I went to my first conference and spent so much time around people who were like me.  I didn't become a writer until I left that conference and understood what I needed to do to become a successful writer.

10. Write what you want to write.  If it's good enough, somebody will pay to read it.

What are some of your own Rules for Writing?