When The Guardian asked big-name authors for their personal rules of writing in 2010, Atwood sent ten. They're funnier and more practical than most lists like this, and the first one is about stationery.

The Direct Answer
Ten rules, published in The Guardian in 2010.
Her contribution to the paper's 2010 feature Ten rules for writing fiction, inspired by Elmore Leonard's list.

Start With the Pencil

Atwood's first rule is gloriously literal. Take a pencil to write with on aeroplanes, she says, because pens leak. Then the kicker: if the pencil breaks you can't sharpen it on the plane, since you can't bring a knife through security, so take two. It reads like a joke, and it half is, but it's really about removing the small excuses that stop you from working when you finally have the time and the seat to do it. A leaking pen becomes a reason not to start. Atwood's answer is to plan around the failure before it happens.

A few of the others are just as grounded. Take something to write on, she says, and paper is good. Do back exercises, because pain is distracting. If you're on a computer, safeguard your new text with backups. She treats writing as a physical job with physical failure points, the kind that have nothing to do with talent or inspiration, and most of her advice is about not letting those points stop the work. The unspoken message is that the romance of writing matters far less than showing up able to do it.

Hold the Reader, Hold Yourself

The rule writers quote most is the one about attention. Atwood's instruction is to keep the reader reading, with a parenthetical that's pure her. It's a tidy little test you can run on your own draft: if a page is putting you to sleep as you write it, you already know what it'll do to a stranger.

Hold the reader's attention. (This is likely to work better if you can hold your own.)

Margaret Atwood, The Guardian, 2010

She's blunt about the trade too. You need a thesaurus, a grammar book, and a grip on reality, she wrote, and that last one means there's no free lunch. Writing is work. It's also a gamble with no pension plan, where other people can help a little but you're essentially on your own. Nobody is making you do this, she points out, so don't whine. There's a rule about readers too: get a few you trust to look at the draft before it goes to a publisher, and don't pick someone you're romantically involved with, because they'll lie to keep the peace. For how she actually puts in those hours, see the full Margaret Atwood writing routine.

What You Can Steal