Remember: a story is not a vignette. It has a beginning, middle and an end. It is not merely a snapshot in time.

Nobody becomes a writer overnight. Well, I'm sure somebody did, but that person's head probably went all asplodey from paroxysms of joy, fear, paranoia, guilt and uncertainty. Celebrities can be born overnight. Writer's can't. Writers are made - forged, really, in a kiln of their own madness and insecurities - over the course of many, many moons. The writer you are when you begin is not the same writer you become.

Question the Chestnuts. Chestnuts: the new name for boobs? No. NO. Why would you even say that? Get your mind out of the gutter. No, by "chestnuts" I mean, "those old pieces of writing advice that you hear as common refrain." 'Write what you know.' 'Adverbs give Baby Jesus hemorrhoids.' 'If you write a prologue, an orphan loses his sight.' All the "old saws" need to be put on the chopping block.

Writing is the act of creation. Put words on page. Words to sentences, sentences to paragraphs, paragraphs to 7-book epic fantasy cycles with books so heavy you could choke a hippo. But don't give writing too much power, either. A wizard controls his magic; it doesn't control him. Push aside lofty notions and embrace the workmanlike aesthetic. Hammers above magic wands; nails above eye-of-newt. The magic will return when you're done. The magic is what you did, not what you're doing.

Enter the story as late as you can.

The story goes that every Jedi constructs his own lightsaber, and every penmonkey constructs his own pen. Meaning, we all find our own way through this crazy tangle of possibility. This isn't an art, a craft, a career, or an obsession that comes with easy answers and isn't given over to bullshit dichotomies. We do what we do in the way we do it and hope it's right. Read advice. Weigh it in your hand and determine its value. But at the end of the day - and at the start of it - what you should be doing is writing. Because thinking about writing and talking about writing just plain isn't writing.

Storytelling is an act of cruelty. We are cruel to our characters because to be kind is to invite boredom, and boredom in storytelling is synonymous with big doomy death-shaped death. So: be cruel to your protagonist. Rob him of something. Something important. Something he needs. A weapon. An asset. A piece of knowledge. A loved one. A DELICIOUS PIE. Take it away! Force him to operate without it. Conflict reinvigorates stale stories. New conflict, or old conflict that has evolved and grown teeth.