She wrote a book (well, it was originally a lecture course) on how to write Fiction, called ‘The Art of Fiction’.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Fiction-Guide-Writers-Readers/dp/0452281547

It’s a really helpful book. One of the most important things I’ve taken from that book (and from her other book on the subject, aptly named, ‘The Art of Non-Fiction’) is that writing is the final step in a long process of work.
The reason people get stuck with writing is that they are waiting for inspiration, which means, a plan, a draft, an idea, some stylish flair and some metaphors, all at once. Rand basically lays out how you need to think through everything, e.g. “What is my theme?”, and, just as importantly, what it means for something to be a theme, as opposed to just a subject or a plot-point.

Another very interesting point is ‘concretisation’. This is a philosophical principle which she applied to her writing (both Fiction and Non-Fiction). That is, that people do not learn by abstraction alone – especially in fiction. You cannot just say, “One day there was a strong, brave man”. You have to show him being strong, and doing brave things.

Anyway, yeah, there’s lots of good stuff in that book, and I could go on for days. If it does not teach you anything about writing, then it will teach you something about reading, how to get the most out of a book, by considering all the elements she discusses there.

Also, it inspired me to add a new weekly routine of Thankful Thursdays in which i send thank-you notes to friends, family, and famousness on Thursdays (famousness is for all the creative types that entertain and inspire me to create. also it helped my alliteration). You get the first one since it was your suggestion of the book and since The Guild inspired me to get off my butt and write some new shit. It’s odd going the self-help style route to write comedy (stand-up stuff, mostly mean… but with a smile), but it has helped tremendously.

So thanks for the suggestion. Thanks for The Guild. Thanks for being adorable all the way back as Slayer Vi.

Randy Mendez