The Only Writing Advice Worth Following

There are hundreds of books about writing...I know because I bought most of them. And read most of them. And discovered that there were so many ways to do it wrong, and so many "must-do's" for getting it right, that I gave up on the whole endeavor for quite some time.

I have NaNoWriMo to thank for breaking my paralysis, because it categorically rejects any notion of craft and focuses solely on word count. Indeed, it puts into action the only writing advice I consider worth following, and I share it with you here. It is something forwarded to me eight years ago by a dear friend of mine, which he saw in a magazine:

"A long time ago, Robert Heinlein wrote down the secret of becoming a professional writer:
1) You must write.
2) You must finish what you write.
3) You must not endlessly rewrite. Finish it, then send it to someone who can buy it: not to friends, not to relatives, not to other writers in hopes of getting advice, but to editors who buy words. Don't rewrite unless someone who can buy it tells you to.
4) Go back to step one, and keep going until you're successful."