1. Addendum to the title: Even when it’s four-twenty in the freaking a.m. and you’re wide awake, you write. When it’s two-oh-seven and you have to get up in four hours for your day job, you write. When you’re on your lunch break at your day job, you write. When your friends are out and posting pictures on Facebook over the weekend, you write. You write because you can’t not.
2. The second rule of Write Club is you write anywhere and everywhere. Post-it notes, discarded receipts you found at the bottom of your purse. Notebooks and laptops (of course). iPhones and iPads – sometimes with the voice memo feature because you’re driving and the most amazing idea just came to you. You may awake one morning to find the words “Yellow paper – she thinks about Friday” scrawled in eyeliner pencil on a carefully laid Kleenex on your bathroom counter and realize that you were capturing a brilliant middle-of-the-night thought but have no idea what the hell that was now.
3. The third rule of Write Club is that everyone is a story. Every person you meet, or read about, or see on TV, or dream in that chaotic imagination of yours is a story – real or perceived. No one is safe. You can get revenge on every childhood bully who ever plagued you, every ridiculous teacher, every jerk of an ex, every self-entitled boss, and every exasperating family member with a tap of the keys or a flourish of the pen. And it’s delicious, darling. Simply delicious.
4. The fourth rule of Write Club is you read. You learn from what you read – whether that’s research or another writer in your genre or just a well-crafted story that hooks you and you want to figure out how to do the same. When you’re not writing, you’re probably reading. And if you’re re-reading your own stuff sometimes because you still love that damn story, you’re probably doing something right.
5. The fifth rule of Write Club is you will fall in love with your characters. They will break your heart and make you laugh and you will hug them tight to you and wish you could make it better for them but know that you can’t because they have to get through this. They’re going to surprise you before it’s done, too.

And the last rule of Write Club…get off the internet and get back to writing. I’ve got a book to finish (even if I feel like it’s never truly finished…)