People think that if you are a writer giving writing tips  then you are annoying and probably getting too big for your writer boots. I know this because of all the letters I get saying ‘you are annoying and too big for your writer boots’.

People hate writing tips so much that on the day Elmore Leonard died a load of talentless whiners went on Twitter to say that he was wrong to say you shouldn’t start a book with weather, because lots of great books started with weather.

Anyway, I am not too big for my boots. And to prove it, here are some writing tips God gave, and sent to me, his earthly messenger:

-Never start a book with weather.

– Don’t beat yourself up over plot. I wrote the world’s greatest bestseller. It sold shitloads, and we even got it into every hotel room in the world (I love my publishers). But there are plot holes all over the place.

-The best bit in the Bible is the story of Noah’s Ark. I’m proud of it. I like to think it inspired Life of Pi.

– Short words are better than long words. And if you have to ask why, I’ll make you as unhappy as I made Will Self.

– Don’t write to get good reviews. Newspaper reviews are written by soulless people.

– Editing should never be censorship. That doesn’t mean you should keep that erotic love scene with the goat, because that wasn’t working.

– If you are in it for money alone you are an idiot. The more you chase Money, the more Money will run away from you, and the more Art will sneer from the sidelines, calling you a dick.

– Don’t write a book to get laid, unless you are already James Franco.

– ‘The road to Hell is paved with adverbs’, Stephen King. But Hell is quite a good place to hang out if you want to be a writer. Just ask Poe. Or Bukowski.

– Write what you bloody well want. Everyone is the God of the world they create. Only they are not a real God, because I am. And there is only one of me. I’m like the Kanye West of Gods.

– Don’t write a book to impress your parents. Become a lawyer to impress your parents. Or a doctor. Or a charismatic magician with a beard who can turn bread into wine.

– People will always misinterpret your work. See: the Bible. (And just for the record, I wrote Leviticus on an off day. My difficult third book. There was too much expectation, and the advance was nowhere near big enough.)

– Heaven is a library. Just like Borges said.