Carry a notebook – You must take your notebook with you everywhere you go. This especially includes the shower, where you will also need a mechanical pencil, and underneath your pillow, so your thoughts can be recorded by osmosis as you sleep.

Show don’t tell – Don’t write “I am feeling hot.” Write, instead, “My crotch drips with sweat.”

Use an alternative format – If you are having trouble writing your memoir, tell your life’s story as a recipe, obituary, or Taylor Swift friendship bracelet.

Add suspense –  As Chekhov once wrote, “Every story can use a gun and a mysterious box wrapped in gold foil sitting out on the kitchen counter.” Have your character shoot the box with the gun.

Writer’s block doesn’t exist –  Stop masturbating.

Consider working John Stamos into your story – Your protagonist’s 1980s-era childhood bedroom walls could be adorned with posters of Michael Jordan and bikini-clad photos of Heather Locklear taken prior to her many stints in rehab. Or, instead, they could feature John Stamos as Blackie from General Hospital because, like me, your character is gay.

Grab the reader with a hook they cannot forget –  Do not start your piece with “the,” “once,” “a,” or “I.” You must begin with a sizzle like the first bite of a well-done rib eye. Start with “BAM!” or “POW!” or “Shazam!” If you’re writing a quieter piece, use words like “Biological agent fallen into the wrong hands.” Pro tip: mention the Titanic or “submersible” in the first paragraph.

Include the five senses in every single sentence you write –  Always remember that readers are stupid. They need to be able to touch, hear, smell, taste, and see every moment of action to have any clue what is happening in your story.

So don’t write, “The boy fell off his bike and hurt himself.”

Write, “The boy flew face first over his bicycle’s handlebars while screaming, Oh shit, I appear to be on an uncontrolled flight path like a Chinese government weather balloon! just before landing on pavement so hot from global warming that it singed his fingers and produced a smell like charred eggs. Also, if the boy ate the pavement, it would taste like charred eggs.”

Cut the first 1,000 words of your piece –  Even if cutting leaves only seven words, this step is absolutely necessary. You don’t want to just kill your darlings. You want to thoroughly massacre your work so that the piece, if personified, would offer up neighbors and family members as suspects to end the torture.

Use ample alliteration & magnificent metaphors – Sally didn’t offer goods for purchase at the beach. Sally sold seashells at the seashore.
Include sentences containing such powerful alliterations that the reader experiences the painful sensation of a twisted tongue as she reads the piece peacefully personally poolside.

Also, be sure to use ample metaphor. The day is not dark. The day is a cavernous cacophony of cackling creepy cloudy crypts.

Tell it slant –  Write while doing a handstand on your living room couch and see what happens.