Do you have any advice for writers looking to get published?
Yeah, yeah, a couple things. First one is, read a lot. Read a lot in the genre you want to be published in. If you want to write short stories, read short stories. If you want to write novels, read novels. Read in the genre, but also read widely. But nothing is more frustrating than someone who says “I want to publish fantasy novels” who’s never read any. Find out what other people are doing that’s exciting and try and add something to it.
The other thing is, just write. Know that you don’t have to be perfect when you start. Nobody sits down and expects to be able to play the piano the first time. But a lot of writers, it seems, get frustrated when they try to write their first book that it’s not capturing the vision in their head. So, don’t be afraid to be bad at it long enough to get good at it. Just sit down and start writing. Turn off your internal editor. Understand that your first book’s not going to be very good and that’s just fine. Practice writing it ‘cause that’s how you learn to write. Do it consistently. Set a time every day or every week where you write. Consistently keep that goal. Work on your books. Don’t let yourself write a first chapter, throw it away and write another one, and then throw it away and write another one. Force yourself to finish.
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