Quote Originally Posted by anonymouse View Post
His point #5 interests me. I realize it's a joke but, there's also a certain usefulness about it. Two of the biggest problems I have as a writer, and they're related problems, are (a) I spend so much time setting the background that (b) my impatience with the story not actually going anywhere causes me to abandon it.

What I try to do these days is work the scene-setting/background into the fabric of the story -- to reveal things as I go.

anonymouse
Was it really a joke? If you read some of the things that arre produced in the name of writing today you will see where this rule would be very handy for some authors, robert jordan comes to mind.