I like this series of lists on how to write fiction from The Guardian, via writers including:

• Joyce Carol Oates (Don’t try to anticipate an “ideal reader” – there may be one, but he/she is reading someone else.)
• Will Self (Always carry a notebook. And I mean always. The short-term memory only retains information for three minutes; unless it is committed to paper you can lose an idea for ever.)
• & Zadie Smith (Work on a computer that is disconnected from the internet.)

The number one thing most of these folks say to do is to write… to be faithful to your craft, to be disciplined, to keep going even when it seems impossible.

Cheers to that.