著名的美國科幻小說作家羅伯特·海因萊因（Robert A. Heinlein）蜀肘，給有志于寫作的年輕人蔓钟，傳授過五條寫作規(guī)則观游，幫助他們?nèi)腴T搂捧。
我覺得這些規(guī)則，不僅適用于作家懂缕，也同樣適用于程序員异旧。
規(guī)則一：你必須動手寫
聽起來很明顯，是嗎提佣？但是吮蛹，很多人只是想想而已，并沒有真的動手寫任何東西拌屏。成為作家的唯一途徑是將自己放在鍵盤前潮针，開始工作。
規(guī)則二：完成草稿
你開始寫的前幾頁倚喂，可能很糟糕每篷，你可能會想將它們?nèi)拥簟２灰@樣做端圈，繼續(xù)下去把草稿寫完焦读。一旦有了初稿，包括開頭舱权、中間和結(jié)尾矗晃，你會驚訝地發(fā)現(xiàn)，哪些是有用的部分宴倍，哪些是沒用的部分张症。
規(guī)則三：不要無休止地修改
你應(yīng)該不斷修改你的草稿，但是一旦發(fā)現(xiàn)鸵贬，修改后的效果沒有比原來有太大的提升俗他，就應(yīng)該結(jié)束修改了。有句老話說阔逼，故事永遠不會結(jié)束兆衅，只會被放棄。你要學(xué)習(xí)到了某個點嗜浮，不再對這個作品投入時間羡亩。
規(guī)則四：你必須將作品推向市場
寫完之后，放在書桌上是沒有用的周伦。即使你對自己沒有信心夕春，也應(yīng)該把作品發(fā)布出去，看看外界的反應(yīng)专挪。不要膽怯及志，沒有發(fā)表過的作品片排，等于沒有寫。
規(guī)則五：你必須努力推廣作品速侈，直到售出為止
一個事實是率寡，你的作品幾乎肯定會被拒絕，最大的可能是根本沒有反響倚搬。不要為這種事情煩惱冶共，很多偉大的作家都收過很多拒稿信。如果那些拒絕當(dāng)中包含你認(rèn)為不錯的建議每界，請修改你的作品捅僵，然后再次發(fā)布。如果得不到什么建議眨层，那就轉(zhuǎn)向其他市場發(fā)布庙楚。你要堅持讓更多的人看到你的作品。
最后趴樱，不管上一部作品得到什么樣的成績馒闷，你開始準(zhǔn)備下一部作品。
原文如下：
There are countless rules for writing success, but the most famous ones, at least in the science-fiction field, are the five coined by the late, great Robert A. Heinlein.
Heinlein used to say he had no qualms about giving away these rules, even though they explained how you could become his direct competitor, because he knew that almost no one would follow their advice.
In my experience, that's true: if you start off with a hundred people who say they want to be writers, you lose half of the remaining total after each rule — fully half the people who hear each rule will fail to follow it.
I'm going to share Heinlein's five rules with you, plus add a sixth of my own.
Rule One: You Must Write
It sounds ridiculously obvious, doesn't it? But it is a very difficult rule to apply. You can't just talk about wanting to be a writer. You can't simply take courses, or read up on the process of writing, or daydream about someday getting around to it. The only way to become a writer is to plant yourself in front of your keyboard and go to work.
And don't you dare complain that you don't have the time to write. Real writers buy the time, if they can't get it any other way. Take Toronto's Terence M. Green, a high-school English teacher. His third novel, Shadow of Ashland, just came out from Tor. Terry takes every fifth year off from teaching without pay so that he can write; most writers I know have made similar sacrifices for their art.
(Out of our hundred original aspirant writers, half will never get around to writing anything. That leaves us with fifty . . .)
Rule Two: Finish What You Start
You cannot learn how to write without seeing a piece through to its conclusion. Yes, the first few pages you churn out might be weak, and you may be tempted to toss them out. Don't. Press on until you're done. Once you have an overall draft, with a beginning, middle, and end, you'll be surprised at how easy it is to see what works and what doesn't. And you'll never master such things as plot, suspense, or character growth unless you actually construct an entire piece.
On a related point: if you belong to a writers' workshop, don't let people critique your novel a chapter at a time. No one can properly judge a book by a piece lifted out of it at random, and you'll end up with all sorts of pointless advice: "This part seems irrelevant." "Well, no, actually, it's very important a hundred pages from now . . ."
(Of our fifty remaining potential writers, half will never finish anything — leaving just twenty-five still in the running . . .)
Rule Three: You Must Refrain From Rewriting, Except to Editorial Order
This is the one that got Heinlein in trouble with creative-writing teachers. Perhaps a more appropriate wording would have been, "Don't tinker endlessly with your story." You can spend forever modifying, revising, and polishing. There's an old saying that stories are never finished, only abandoned — learn to abandon yours.
If you find your current revisions amount to restoring the work to the way it was at an earlier stage, then it's time to push the baby out of the nest.
And although many beginners don't believe it, Heinlein is right: if your story is close to publishable, editors will tell you what you have to do to make it salable. Some small-press magazines do this at length, but you'll also get advice from Analog, Asimov's, and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.
(Of our remaining twenty-five writers, twelve will fiddle endlessly, and so are now out of the game. Twelve more will finally declare a piece complete. The twenty-fifth writer, the one who got chopped in half, is now desperately looking for his legs . . .)
Rule Four: You Must Put Your Story on the Market
This is the hardest rule of all for beginners. You can't simply declare yourself to be a professional writer. Rather, it's a title that must be conferred upon you by those willing to pay money for your words. Until you actually show your work to an editor, you can live the fantasy that you're every bit as good as Guy Gavriel Kay or William Gibson. But having to see if that fantasy has any grounding in reality is a very hard thing for most people to do.
I know one Canadian aspirant writer who managed to delay for two years sending out his story because, he said, he didn't have any American stamps for the self-addressed stamped envelope. This, despite the fact that he'd known dozens of people who went regularly to the States and could have gotten stamps for him, and despite the fact that he could have driven across the border himself and picked up stamps.
No, it wasn't stamps he was lacking — it was backbone. He was afraid to find out whether his prose was salable. Don't be a coward: send your story out.
(Of our twelve writers left, half of them won't work up the nerve to make a submission, leaving just six . . .)
Rule Five: You Must Keep it on the Market until it has Sold
It's a fact: work gets rejected all the time. Almost certainly your first submission will be rejected. Don't let that stop you. I've currently got 142 rejection slips in my files; every professional writer I know has stacks of them (the prolific Canadian horror writer Edo van Belkom does a great talk at SF conventions called "Thriving on Rejection" in which he reads samples from the many he's acquired over the years).
If the rejection note contains advice you think is good, revise the story and send it out again. If not, then simply turn the story around: pop it in the mail, sending it to another market. Keep at it. My own record for the maximum number of submissions before selling a story is eighteen — but the story did eventually find a good home. (And within days, I'd sold it again to a reprint-only anthology; getting a story in print the first time opens up whole new markets.)
If your story is rejected, send it out that very same day to another market.
(Still, of our six remaining writers, three will be so discouraged by that first rejection that they'll give up writing for good. But three more will keep at it . . .)
Rule Six: Start Working on Something Else
That's my own rule. I've seen too many beginning writers labour for years over a single story or novel. As soon as you've finished one piece, start on another. Don't wait for the first story to come back from the editor you've submitted it to; get to work on your next project. (And if you find you're experiencing writer's block on your current project, begin writing something new — a real writer can always write something.) You must produce a body of work to count yourself as a real working pro.
Of our original hundred wannabe writers, only one or two will follow all six rules. The question is: will you be one of them? I hope so, because if you have at least a modicum of talent and if you live by these six rules, you will make it.
