My favorite is number seven: “You most likely need a thesaurus, a rudimentary grammar book, and a grip on reality.”
Enjoy!
Also a similar list from Jonathan Fransen. This time my favorite is number ten: “You have to love before you can be relentless.” That one stopped me and made me think.
From my admittedly non-fiction-writer viewpoint, I’ll take Atwood’s list over Franzen’s any day. In particular, I haven’t the least interest in whether the author was making a “personal adventure into the frightening or the unknown” when writing their book, and I flat don’t believe that most worthwhile books are any such personal adventure.