"The dictionary is the only place where success comes before work" - Vince Lombardi

I love cliches, and now that The Guardian (a UK newspaper) has recently published a guide to writing a novel, I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon with my tuppences worth.

First things first. If your not prepared to put the work in, get the hell out of here and stop clogging up the world of publishing for the rest of us!

Secondly, how much work should you do every day? A 1000 words, 5,000 words, 10,000 words?

Continuity is the key. 500 words every day is better than 1000 words every three days. After a few days, you'll be surprised how much you've done, and this often spurs people on. The national novel writing competition is a good way to set a target.

Secondly, be flexible. It's ok to skip a day if you have more important things to do like work or baking cakes.

Now to the crux of the argument, if it's all about work, couldn't you get a monkey to bash some keys and write a novel? After all, where's the thought process?

Let me tell you thinking is a dangerous thing for a writer to do. Just write, let instinct take over. Build your skeleton and put the meat on later i.e the fine tuning. Once you've got your framework done, then you can fine tune.

Now get out there and start typing.