Writer's Quotes - Jane Yolen

Inspiration from Jane Yolen:

Three writing rules I live by. 
- Write something every day. (BIC). 
- Revision is your best friend. 
- A manuscript in the drawer or on the laptop that isn't sent out cannot be bought. 

And two rules that even well known writers stumble over: 
- the editor is your colleague, not your enemy. 
- And a rejection is not the end of a dream. 
- Rowling had over 30 rejections and when finally published it was in a very small edition by Bloomsbury in the UK. 
L'engle's A WRINKLE IN TIME had 29 rejections. 
Suess's first book book well over 30 rejections. As I understand it, he was ready to self-publish it. (enter editor, Bennett Cerf.)

Rules for Writing

Wow.
Here's a link being passed around on Facebook:
Rules for Writing by the award-winning author, Neil Gaiman,
8 Rules for Writing
A Path to Publishing.

Single space or Double space? Which are you?

Now, just call me an old fuddy-duddy, but I have to confess something.

Event though I've been told that the new rule is to single-space everything you type (keyboard?), my fingers don't always remember.  I was taught on a typewriter, where the rule was to double-space between sentences and after colons, because it made it easier to read. And now my manuscripts seem to be a combination of both, depending on how fast I'm typing and whether my fingers remember to single space or not.

I also thought that the reason publishers were now requesting single space was because they could save money and print books with less pages that way.

It turns out that the single-space rule isn't that firm -- there still is some discussion about it.
Check out these articles and blog posts:

Why two spaces after a period isn't wrong on a website called Heraclitean River.
and
The Punctuation Conundrum on Kathryn Gagalione's blog, Hers for the Reading.

and from the MLA rulemakers, themselves :
MLA