After mailing an article or story to a new market, the very next time you look at your copy, you will find an error on the first page.
The publication that purchased your piece will go out of business the month before it's scheduled to print it.
The longer you have to wait for an editor to make up his mind, the greater your hope that your piece will be accepted.
The lines that you like the best, are the ones the editor will insist you remove.
A story that you're sure will go over well with your critique group, will be ripped to shreds. Conversely, the story you are sure is garbage is the one that will garner the highest praise.
The Editor that loved your novel, will leave the company shortly before she sends you an acceptance letter.
Corollary: The Editor that replaces her will send you a rejection slip almost immediately.
You can never remember if you stamped the self addressed envelope, once you've mailed the submission.
If someone claims that you've misused a word, and you're sure you didn't... it will turn out that you were wrong.
Corollary: The more stupid it makes you look, the more people will be present when you find out.
The one fact in any article that you know is true without having to check, will turn out to be wrong.
Corollary: Everyone else you speak to will immediately know what you didn't.
The one piece of research that supports the rest of your premise, will turn out to be wrong.
The one fact that you absolutely need to know, will be conspicuously absent from every web page and book you can find on the subject.
Any new idea that comes your way, will only occur to you when you are out and have no pen or paper to record it.
Corollary: By the time you get home, you will have completely forgotten it, until the next time you go out without a pen and paper.
Any editor you've had a vicious argument with, will soon end up working for your favorite magazine.
Corollary: Editors never forget a writer that's pissed them off.
It is far easier to write, than it is to get published.
No matter how many rejections slips you get, or how much criticism, NEVER forget why you began writing in the first place.
Steve's Laws of Writing have appeared in E2K Ezine, The AnotherRealm Newsletter, Science Fiction Romance Newsletter, the Bookmice webpage and of course...here! I wrote this as a lark (in twenty minutes), after completing my interview for Easywriters and it immediately became my most popular piece of work to date!