In her book Making a Literary Life: Advice for Writers and Other Dreamers, Carolyn See has a lot to say about how to survive and even thrive in the writing life.

In part, she does this by keeping it simple. She includes practical asides about what will be demanded of you, though what she says does help (“A thousand words a day—or two hours of revisions—five days a week for the rest of your life”).

See also reminds writers what not to do:

You know the last thing in the world people want to hear from you, the very last thing they’re interested in? The fact that you always have wanted to write, that you cherish dreams of being a writer, that you wrote something and got rejected once, that you believe you have it in you-if only the people around you would give you a chance-to write a very credible, if not great, American novel…