10 Tips on How to Write Less Badly

Here is the link: http://chronicle.com/article/10-Tips-on-How-to-Write-Less/124268/

1. Writing is an exercise - you get better and faster with practice
2. Set goals based on output, not input - "I will type three double-spaced pages", not "I will work for 3 hours"
3. Find a voice; don't just "get published" - "What are you writing that will be read 10 years from now? What about 100 years from now?"; getting published isn't about getting published, it's about ideas and arguments
4. Give yourself time - writers wrestle with ideas a long time; you get ideas when you write, you don't just write down ideas.
5. Everyone's unwritten work is brilliant - when you are actually writing, and working as hard as you should be if you want to succeed, you will feel inadequate, stupid, and tired; if you don't feel like that, you aren't working hard enough
6. Pick a puzzle - present your work as an answer to a puzzle
7. Write, then squeeze in the other things - put your writing ahead of other work, write during the most productive time of day, and squeeze in everything else: the writing comes first
8. Not all of your thoughts are profound - start small; it is hard to refine questions, define terms, or know your argument until you've started writing it all down
9. Your most profound thoughts are often wrong - or at least, partially incorrect; answers to profound questions do not come easily
10. Edit your work, over and over - the difference between a successful scholar and a failure need not be better writing: it is more often editing