• Don’t use no double negatives.
• Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
• Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixed metaphors.
• If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times — resist hyperbole.
• “Avoid overuse of ‘quotation “marks'”
• Avoid commas, that are not necessary.
• If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.
• Avoid clichés like the plague.
• Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
• Avoid colloquial stuff.

Maybe you have to be a language lover to really appreciate these, but they always make me smile.

This list was compiled and edited by William Safire, based on suggestions from his NY Times readers. Safire, who died two months ago, was quite a character: college dropout, one-time Public Relations executive, long-time New York Times political columnist and frequent contributor to On Language in the Times Magazine. He was also a speechwriter for Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew, and authored Agnew’s famous phrase, “nattering nabobs of negativism.”

“There are three rules for writing the novel a website. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”

“There’s a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don’t, and the secret is this: It’s not the writing part that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write. What keeps us from sitting down is Resistance.”

Whether you’re a writer, painter, or spreadsheet jockey, if Resistance is getting the better of you, Pressman’s short book is a must-read.

Here’s one way to overcome resistance that usually works for me. I wish I could credit whoever I got this from, but that’s been lost in the mists of memory. (If you know, please tell in the comments.)

OK, ready? Here goes.

Make a deal with yourself. Promise yourself that you will seriously tackle it — whatever you’re resisting — for just ten minutes. How hard can that be? I mean, you can endure anything for ten lousy minutes, right? (Except waterboarding, perhaps).

OK, grab your digital kitchen timer — a must-have tool for the productivity-minded. Set it for ten minutes. Now get going. Dig in and really give it your best shot. It’s only ten minutes, right?

When the timer goes off, if you’re still not into it, OK. Give up. Move on to something else. You did your part. You fulfilled your end of the bargain. You “win” (or lose, depending on how you look at it). Of course, if you’re like me, after ten minutes you’re back into it and (finally!) rolling again. You just needed a way to “trick” yourself into getting started. Congrats!

Try it and let me know how it works for you. And if you have a better way to get yourself started, by all means share it n the comments.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I need a hit of Rolling Stones: “Start me up, start me up baby and I’ll never stop…”

Photo by rkreetch

Writing, especially creative writing, is not the kind of thing you can do all day, every day. Most fiction writers have a daily word count (or page count) they try to hit, then they take a break and do other things. Most need to get “out of their heads” for a while to let the embers of their creativity cool.

Singer-songwriter Natasha Bedingfield recently told the NY Times’ Measure for Measure blog how she writes little-by-little.

“(A)ll you really have to do is write a little bit every day. Even if it is rubbish, even if it’s really bad, just set aside a half hour every day to write. Write something, anything, and don’t worry about whether it’s perfect. So when you’re songwriting and you’re staring at a blank page before you — I’m talking about when you’re feeling daunted about the future and afraid to make any step, afraid that the bad stuff is going to get embarrassing — just let the bad stuff come out!

“I found out it that it doesn’t even matter if I fall because even if I fall, that gives me another good story to write… Learning all of that really freed me.”

So what are you waiting for?

As today’s Consumerist detailed, Silverman has been amazingly successful in getting companies to give him all sorts of free stuff: First class upgrades, hotel room upgrades (how does a free week in the Presidential Suite sound?), hundreds of dollars in cash — all from his way with words.

Silverman has now written a book filled with advice for complaining. The basic technique isn’t too far off from the way to write an effective sales letter. Basically his advice is:

1. Make the opening of your complaint letter personable and personal. Hook their interest.
2. Praise first before you explain why you’re dissatisfied.
3. Keep it brief. The reader is busy and easily distracted.
4. Be reasonable — don’t ask for the moon.
5. Make it clear you haven’t written them off, that you pl;an to be customers again in the future, and that you would welcome some sort of compensation.

As the Consumerist put it, “It’s really just an artful way of demonstrating the basic principle of “it will cost more to ignore me than to take care of my problem.”

Check it out. It’s a fun read. And it may get you what you want next time you’re wronged.