Don’t write to get back at someone.

You know when you’re writing for the wrong reason. You sit down preparing to get your thoughts down on paper and all you can think is “I’ll show them.”

First of all, you won’t. I know it will feel good to write whatever’s on your mind but do it.

You won’t show them.

Maybe you’re writing because an agent or a publisher passed on the great book you’ve yet to write. All of your focus needs to be on the elements that make this book great and not on showing them they were wrong to pass up this opportunity.

If you have a new publisher you need to write a book that fits their needs and their house style not the needs and style of those that aren’t publishing your book.

I knew this guy (we’ve all known this guy) whose girlfriend broke up with him. So he found a new girl that he was sure would make the old girlfriend jealous. He took the new woman to all the same places he used to go with the woman who left him. It was a disaster. He wasn’t taking his current girlfriend to places she wanted to go and his former girlfriend didn’t much care what he did—she’d left him.