10 Rules of Writing

When reading the article "Margaret Atwood's 10 Rules of Writing" I found it extremely interesting to see the mechanics of an author's brain. It is very seldom that a reader takes the time to understand just how much time and thought goes into constructing a novel, whether it is a "best seller" or not. What I enjoyed about this article was the fact that Atwood discusses the difficulties of writing a piece that grabs the attention of all readers; I never truly thought about how many different lenses a writer must look through. For instance, as Atwood describes in rule six, " What fascinates A will bore the pants off B." In my own writing, I do not often think about this, I always feel that the topic I write about would interest others. This tool of perspective is something Atwood has raised awareness toward for me, especially if I want others to believe that my own "story" could relate to him or her.
I also enjoyed learning that Atwood uses a thesaurus, a grammar book, and a "grip on reality." When she says "Writing is work" I can now appreciate all of the precise details that go into crafting the perfect novel. I often thought that when writing a novel, for most authors the cleverness of the novel came naturally. Reading this tip seven, made me realize that even famous writers uses the tools that are accessible to better there writing.
Lastly, my third favorite rule was number 10, "Prayer might work. Or reading something else." I find this rule the most relatable to myself when writing. I do not believe that I could construct a piece of writing without reading other materials. Other materials, in my opinion, show a future writer how to capture your own voice, and how to write a narrative or analytical paper that is intriguing to an audience. I find that for myself, the knowledge that I have gained, including specific words and phrases, has helped me to build my writing style. Without understand a word in context of a book or novel, I might never have learned what the word even means. I also believe that reading other works can help inspire a writer to think of obscure topics that they might not have written about. For instance, in a novel that introduces a utopian society a reader may be inspired to think about what his or her own utopian society would look like. Without understand other novels that have this similar idea, they might not have been able to think of a topic to write about.