Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club and so many other books, has an essay up on his site, The Cult, called "13 Writing Tips." They are broad and they are specific, they are obvious and they are insightful. They are, above all, helpful, no matter what point in your career you may be at. The ones you thought you knew bear repeating. The new ones should get filed away. For instance:

Number Eight: If you need more freedom around the story, draft to draft, change the character names. Characters aren't real, and they aren't you. By arbitrarily changing their names, you get the distance you need to really torture a character. Or worse, delete a character, if that's what the story really needs.

That one is all of those things. Especially helpful. Go read the whole thing now.