Joseph Roth’s Tips for Writers

wwnorton:

1. Read more of the greats and the immortals: Shakespeare, Balzac, Flaubert!
2. No Gide! No Proust! Nor anything of the sort!
3. The Bible. Homer.
4. Don’t distrust the “reader” too much!
5. Try to keep yourself clear of journalism at heart.
6. No interest in day-to-day politics. They distort. They distort the human.
7. There’s really no need for you to write serials! F*#k them. All they’re good for is a hat for the wife and a dress for the girlfriend.

From Joseph Roth: A Life in Letters.