Shobhna Shahare's Rules for Writing when you're at the Start and in the Messy Middle

1. There is no good or bad.
2. Trying means doing. Doing means writing.
3. Show up for myself again and again and again ad infinitum.
4. Show up for my writing again and again and again ad infinitum.
5. If what I am writing is cringey, then cringe and keep writing.
6. If what I am writing is too on the nose then accept that it is so and write on.
7. If what I am writing is posturing, if it is me the writer speaking and not the character, then keep writing.
8. If what I am writing is not clear then write and be lost in it.
9. If I am avoiding writing about something but still writing this is allowed because it will always surface probably painfully until I cannot ignore it at all.
10. If I want to write about all the horrible people and the ways in which they have treated me, or people who have been horrible to the world and my loved ones and myself, if I want to use those specific scenarios and lay out their stupidity and their insecurities and show my world how I hate their sensibilities and possibly them in that moment or in general, then writing these things into story are perfectly A-OK things to write about and just because I am being petty and processing does not mean I am being bad or wrong because that is not a thing and it is important that I am writing it that is most important.
11. It is okay to hurt people’s feelings by writing what I want to write.
12. If I am not having fun writing what I am writing but I know it is in service to some known-unknown thing, then keep writing.
13. Writing is fun but not with toxic expectations. Sometimes it is gleeful laughing shrieks of laughter fun sometimes it is wonder and awe fun sometimes it is play play play fun and when it is not any of this after I write the difficult scary thing then it is gallows and twisted humour fun.
14. Ignore the reader when writing. It is not for them, it is for me first, always. Also for them yes, but me first. Always.
15. There is nothing off-limits in my writing.
16. Write and be free (of it).
17. Write and bring it into being.