If - A Writers’ Guild Gild Guile Guide After Rudyard Kipling Poem by Jonathan ROBIN

If you can form and not make norms your master,
conformity, performance formal, flame.
If you inform, share, [fl]airing, flow far faster,
yet let not copyright bind tight to shame.
If you treat critic’s inconstructive blaster
with humour, beat him at his game’s lame claim,
take not to hea[r]t his tumour, bandage, plaster
half-heartedly, pretend [s]he never came.

If you can couple energy creative
well in advance of others in your field,
without confusing nominative, dative,
rei[g]n arguments through cogency revealed
in context, in a manner innovative,
code palimpsests from all but sage concealed,
If trust in self is never compensative
reaction used when you refused to yield.

If you can link great ends with small beginnings,
and yet not brag, nor tag each copy sold,
If dialogue’s more vital than piled winnings,
to trim the quill where will won’t be short-sold,
If, ignorance ignored, your story’s spinnings
creates a p[l]ot no Potter has outsold,
yet you can fi[e]nd the flaw, from fresh beginnings
return to steer to clear horizons, bold.

If you can write without cash motivation,
self-righteousness avoiding like the plague,
create consensus round an innovation
embraced by all without appearing vague,
If you can span from logic to emotion
set constant course from vested interests clear,
If you can ban all untoward commotion,
while conscience clings to all that it holds dear,

If you can set the good within you flowing
without the itch to pitch beyond kitsch brink,
If you can give the nod and wink while knowing
that mental states aren’t always in the pink,
If you use inner kinks to keep on growing
without denying others’ right to think,
If you continue for tomorrow sowing
refusing using methods now that stink.

If you can lead lead soldiers Caxton crafted
without kowtow before cold compromise,
If neither editor nor public shafted
the output that your inner soul supplies,
If you can improvise, provide redrafted
communication keyed to catalyze,
you’ll find to your surprise that you have rafted
on stream 'twill seem alone your own dream buys.