One is often asked about advice for young people who want to become writers and generally the advice I hear others writers give, is well you have to do a lot of reading, well that’s obvious cause you develop a certain word sense.
But that’s not the advice I give, mine is just as… really more bad news than good news because I have to use the word practice, who wants to practice? Let’s stop for a minute and think, if you want to be an artist, you know you have to draw all the time, that’s practice.
If you’re going to play the violin, you know you’ve got to practice the scales if you’re going to be any good. If you want to be average, don’t practice. And so it’s the same with writing, if you want to be a writer, it’s one of the arts, you have to practice writing.
That means trying writing stories, it doesn’t matter if they’re good or not, they’re finger exercises at that point. Write in a diary just to become accustomed to writing good sentences, write letters, do any sort of writing because it has to be practiced, that’s the advice I’d give.