The Best Advice I, or Anyone, Can Give to Aspiring Authors.

"What advice do you have for aspiring authors?" is one of the most frequently asked questions of accomplished, published authors. The most frequent answer you'll hear is "Never let anything get in your way; don't let anything stop you. Keep reaching for your dream." And that's totally right. But it's a tired response, and I can't imagine most people wouldn't agree. I myself have never asked a successful, accomplished author "What advice do you have for me?" Because not only did I know that's the response I'd get, but it would be moot because I never, ever let anything get in the way of what I want (integrity persisting, of course). The aforementioned response is a copout, and I believe most people know that, even if it is true. Here's the advice I have for those who are aspiring to achieve a career in writing: Expect to do the goddamned work! Expect to run into obstacles and jump them like an Olympic hurdle jumper, and expect to become significantly frustrated. Writing a book is no cake walk, not even by a long shot. There are plots to be sussed out, characters to be created (and ideally made believable), there are premises to be designed, there are character arcs that need to be worked out and resolved, character struggles to be considered, and most importantly, there are facts to be checked. If you write a book like mine, which is Historical Fiction (accurate historical fiction, I might add), then be prepared to have your work seriously cut out for you! You’d better hit the library, or the book store, and save reputable webpages to your tool bar, and you’d better have your little red pen at the ready. Even better, make it a highlighter. Whenever I write I surround myself with the books I use to help me get to where I need to go in my story. My books have notes written in the corners, they’re dog-eared, they’re marked with post-its. I have a pile of notes with written dialogue that I then have to type in order to insert them into the chapters I was working on or will work on in the future. Maybe “pile” is the wrong word. A mountain of notes is more like it, and that’s not including all of the inserts (that’s what I call them) that I’ve dreamed up and had to quickly type into my laptop and save them for later use when the time came. You’re gonna want to cry over spilt milk, my friend, and that’s okay. Please do. Crying releases stress—that’s a scientific fact. Look it up. You’re going to have to give into that hated need to open your tired eyes after you’ve crawled into bed thinking only of sleep so you can write down that magnificent idea you’ve just come up with (if you can’t do that or are unwilling, how can you call yourself a writer? ALL writers are subject to this intrustion). If you truly want a writing career, then guess what comes first. Writing. Of course you probably have a job, but if you’re like me, it’s just temporary until my *real* job, my writing career (if you're a writer and you work for a corporation to pay the bills, you have two freakin' jobs--remember that! Writing IS a job), finally takes off, and it will, because that’s the attitude I have. And I have a good job, too. But I have no plans to move up in this company. If it happens, great, but it’s still temporary so that I can supplement my husband’s income to help pay the bills and have some disposable dollar bills. And, please listen to and understand me: You’re going be lonely, and you’re going have to learn to love it or lump it. You’re going be frustrated and want to throw tantrums. Throw them—just don’t throw them at anyone. And that loneliness I mentioned? I wasn’t kidding. Expect to be a shut-in. You have friends? Forget about them. I don’t mean to say not to call them on their birthdays or just to check in, but your book, just like a real baby, comes first. You’re not going to accomplish your dream of a writing career by dropping your effort to go out dancing, and those friends you’re out dancing with? They’re not going to worry whether or not you succeed. In that respect, those friends are not friends at all. Sure, you love them like a sister (or brother), but in the end, they can’t help you, and they more than most likely won’t. They don’t care if you finish the great American novel or not. Don’t drop your dream because you want to go out and have a good time. Take it from someone who’s been there in her early 20s. God do I wish I hadn’t dated that asshole and instead had finished my novel, which I completed, by the way, and then rewrote (second draft), and then abandoned to give my time to that waste of a human being. If this sounds like a rant, then good, because I want you to understand that I’m coming at you like a drill sergeant because guess what--*I* want you to succeed. Contributing to the intellectual medium of the world is a tremendous accomplishment and a pretty decent responsibility to have on your shoulders and one you can be proud of. So yeah, don’t let anything get in your way, keep on keepin’ on. But remember what I just took the time to tell you (and as you can see I didn’t worry about my writing technique here because I’m deadly serious, and I don’t have time to make my words flow like butterflies if I want to get my point across).