Absolutely Awful Tips For A Successful Writing Career

Immediately quit your day job (especially if you have no prospective writing clients lined up), then proceed to watch CSI and Golden Girls reruns all day and patiently wait for a publishing company to call (or e-mail) with a six figure contract for a book (or maybe to eat the company's surplus pop tart inventory).

Find a novel or book that has been on the New York Times Bestsellers List and proceed to write the exact same thing (though, maybe you can change the names of the main characters if you have time).

Never accept criticism and assume everything you've written is heavenly gold that will give birth to small heavenly gold babies that will grow up to birth more gold babies until the world it overpopulated with your amazing golden people (aka your flawless writings).

If you get one rejection from a publisher then you should totally quit writing and become an actor or a musician or a sumo wrestler instead.

Write about 200 words a month or so. You really should spend the rest of your time sipping lattes in cafes and surfing the internet on your laptop (this is what real writers do most of the time).

If you have a vague idea for a novel or book, then just automatically assume that it will be a worldwide best seller and earn you an 8 figure advance along with trillions of offers for movie rights (then just tell a bunch of publishers of your vague idea and wait for the money to fly through your window -- make sure window is open).

Don't do any research in the vast types of writing jobs that are available, because there is too many episodes of Jersey Shore that needs to be downloaded.

Acquire a debilitating habit like all the writing greats. The more it ruins your personal life than the more wealthy and successful you will become.

Don't ever, ever, ever read anything. It sucks.

Ignore copy right laws. There is no way your lack of knowledge will come back to harm you in any way possible.

If you have clients, then try to make sure you are as hard to deal with as possible. Everyone loves to work with pretentious, self righteous and egotistical assholes.

If you're interested in doing marketing or ad copy work or other similar free lance projects, then it makes sense to not set your rates or fees before hand. Always assume the client will pay you exactly what your worth and what you need to be financially healthy.

Be conniving, conceited, manipulative and cruel because it will probably help you get ahead in the short term and nobody ever remembers things in the long term (so, that guy you stole work from and then he ended up becoming a CEO of a major publishing company, will totally be cool with you).

Write your article and job queries with a purple crayon on a napkin.

Don't ever market yourself or your work. People will randomly find you and love you.

If you do have writing clients, try to make sure you are unavailable during normal business hours. Clients hate when they can get a hold of those doing work for them.

See all deadlines as very loose guidelines that are completely better to be ignored.

If you somehow found a way to write an entire novel, it makes the most sense to assume the manuscript will be sold, published and on book shelves by the end of the day.

Always assume a prospective client is just waiting to hear from you, and will be able to get back to you in under a minute.

Any magazine or journal or other client that doesn't accept, buy and publish your work after 5 minutes from when you sent it, is completely not worth your time.

Never bother to query your work or market your services, because clients hate it when opportunity for quality products/services is presented to them and would rather spend their whole day trying to scan for writers on Facebook.

Create a web site where you post nothing but cute kitten pictures.

Ghostwriting, technical writing, marketing work, SEO writing and ad copy are all jobs you should completely ignore and not work at, because likely you will not get publicly acknowledged for this writing. Fame is all you should care about, because it is what pays for your mortgage.

A sparkling zombie wizard who sends love notes to a female vampire he has never met, while preparing for the alien invasion of 2012 is the best idea for a novel ever. Write it now. Actually don't bother writing it, just tell people about it and they'll give you money for even thinking it.

If you wake up in the morning and are struggling with the feelings of 'should I write or should I play video games all day', then you know it just isn't the day for writing.

Always remember that you became a freelance writer so that you can go to matinee movies and drink at 2 in the afternoon. Writing is sort of something you do when you have time.

If you wanted to work hard, then you'd have become a doctor or one of those jobs where they expect you to work or something.

The motto you should always stand by, everything that is worthwhile in life comes from a box of Twinkies.