Step 1: Make Sure You Have a Basic Understanding of Grammar
Great writing does not necessarily require a highly advanced and extremely technical understanding of grammar.
Just make sure you know how to properly use the basics, such as: epiphoras; logosglyphs; neologisms; simple, intermediate, and advanced palindromes; vocative cases; onomatopoeias; anaphoras; colloquialisms; squinting, restrictive, limiting, and dangling modifiers; tautology; and (of course) zeugmas.
Keep it simple. If your grammar becomes too complicated, the reader may lose interest or (even worse) begin to think you’re an asshole!
Step 2: Use Your Natural Talent for Grammar and Creativity to Describe Your Life Experiences
Good writing is truly a unique combination of natural talent and depth. Legendary writers do a lot of soul-searching as they use their own personal experiences to construct magnificent and timeless works of literature that are admired by mass numbers of people.
With your natural talent for grammar, your creativity, and your experiences in life, you should have no problem describing your favorite sports team, shopping at the mall, your frustrations with your job, which coworker you disagree with the most, some of your favorite songs, your deeply profound and fascinating view of politics, your constant aggravation over your malfunctioning smartphone, and a fish that you caught while you were drunk before you fell off a boat a few weekends ago.
Step 3: Avoid Companionship and Intimacy With a Romantic Partner While You Are on the Path to Greatness
Love is unnecessary. It will consume all of your time, and it will keep you from using your energy to construct all of those beautiful sentences. Avoid companionship and intimacy at all costs, and maintain as much isolation as you can on a daily basis.
You may feel lonely at times, but do not even think about searching for that significant other who will balance you out psychologically, provide the warmth and affection your heart desperately craves, and perhaps even keep you from going completely off the deep end.
If you really think about it, searching for love is like fighting World War I trench warfare: It’s dangerous, frightening, and traumatic; individuals often rush forward with no clear objectives; excruciating pain and needless suffering are involved; nothing ever really gets accomplished; and the carnage is unbelievable.
Stay focused on your main goal, and don’t let that intensely burning feeling in your loins distract you from good riting. (Excuse me, “writing.”)
Step 4: Outstanding Works of Literature Require Time, Effort, and Commitment; Therefore, You Will Also Need to Quit Your Job and Live Off Ramen Noodles and Beans
Ramen noodles and beans actually have enough nutritional value to keep you alive for a short period of time after you quit your job and completely ignore your financial situation. You may even be able to find some old dog food in your neighbor’s garbage can.
It might seem like a rather bold and irrational thing to do, but producing outstanding literature takes valuable time and effort that is often wasted by paying bills, maintaining responsibilities, and being a functional member of society.
If these things are preventing you from achieving a masterpiece, then you will simply have to abandon them!
Step 5: Remain Calm When You Get Writer’s Block
Now that you’ve quit your soul-draining job, you probably have a limited amount of time before you get evicted from your apartment and are forced to live out on the streets where you will starve to death in an extremely horrifying and gruesome manner.
But that’s no reason to panic or get upset when you get writer’s block. Just remain calm, eat the last can of peas and carrots that you have in your cupboard, take a small walk to clear your mind, and then get back to your writer’s desk when you come up with some ideas.
Unless, of course, you had to sell the desk for money.
Step 6: Let Your Alcohol Problem Get Worse
You probably fell apart as a human being a long time ago, and it’s very likely that you already have an alcohol problem. But that’s no reason why you shouldn’t let it get even worse. Alcoholics have done some of the best writing in all of history. Ever heard of Charles Bukowski?
(Do not give up on yourself at this point even though you may be slightly terrified of the purely awful fate that awaits you as a result of your decision to become a full-blown writer. You went to four different community colleges when you were younger, and you’re not the type of person who quits!)
If you have any money left after the last package of ramen noodles in your barren cupboard has been consumed, use it to buy some vodka or perhaps even a bottle of Everclear. Drink the entire bottle, and then unleash your creativity.
Picking half-smoked cigarettes off the ground and finishing them may also give you the chemically-induced toxicity you need in order to come up with the wonderful ideas that a rational, fully-functional mind wouldn’t be able to produce.
Step 7: Read Books If You Need Inspiration
If you become stuck in the writing process again while you’re surviving off Everclear and cigarette filters, then you should read books for inspiration and new ideas.
I personally recommend:
A) How to Stop Being Yourself an a Daily Basis So That Other People Can Tolerate You by O.V.R. Whelming
B) Where Has My Soul Gone, and Will God Help Me Find It Again?” (author unknown; the book is in the “Non-Denominational Self-Help” section of the library at your nearest correctional facility)
C) I’ve Used Sexuality to Entice and Manipulate Men My Entire Life, But Now I’m Actually Tired of Doing That, and I Want to Be Alone! by B.G. Knockers
D) Moments of Happiness Come and Go Quickly, But Severe Bouts of Extremely Horrible, Crippling Depression Usually Last Much Longer by I.M. Downtrodden
E) Your Left Testicle Is Intensely Swollen Because You Have a Hydrocele, But I’m Not Going to Fix It With Surgery Right Now Because I Have a Weekend of Awesome Skiing Planned by Dr. Rod Cockland
Step 8: After Putting in the Final Touches, Submit Your Work to a Professional Source
After following all of this advice and going through the extremely difficult, mentally strenuous, and highly arduous task of writing and constructing all three paragraphs of your masterpiece, you need to find a professional source that is willing to accept and publish it so that others can finally admire just how much of a genius you are.
In other words, you need to put it on your next Facebook post!
