There is one thing that I get asked all the time -- on a daily basis actually -- by aspiring writers who contact me. They say, "I keep starting things; I don't know how to finish them. I don't seem to be able to find time to write. I don't seem to be able to get my ideas down on paper." What I always say is, "Consider, just consider for a moment, that although you want to be a writer, being a writer may not be where your particular genius lies." When I was a kid, I really, really wanted to be an astronomer. I have no real mathematical abilities whatsoever. I'm fine when it comes to the numbers, but when you show me a quadratic equation I'm completely lost. What I wanted to do was to stare in wonder at the universe, which is not exactly what an astronomer has to do. I think that what a lot of people who want to be writers really want is to have written. That is harder. What I tend to say is, "Look, if you wanted to be a boxer you would listen if someone like Mike Tyson said to you, 'Ok, you've gotta go down to the gym. You've gotta eat the right kind of stuff. You've gotta do your road work. You've gotta work at it for years and years, and it's going to be quite hard.' You'd say, 'Yes, Mike.'" So to writers I say, you're going to have to read a lot -- shitloads in fact. So many books that you're going to overflow. You've got to hook into the popular culture of the 20th century. You've got to keep your mind open to all sorts of influences. You've got to sit down for hours at a time in front of the computer. And you must make grammar, punctuation and spelling a part of your life.
People actually start arguing with me at this point. They think it should be easier than that. But it's not easier than that. After a while, it becomes less difficult because you've developed your own technique. But it is every bit as hard as quite a lot of other things. What seems to be happening more and more (and I don't know why this is so) is that a lot of people labor under the misapprehension that if they cannot write it's because some kind of outside influence is preventing them from doing so -- as if the universe itself is conspiring against their natural destiny of writerdom. People write to me for advice. If I'm kind, I send them back maybe 400 words on how to write. And it's valuable resource. But people don't want to be told that they have to sit there for a long time and work hard at it. That is not the answer that they desire to hear. I'm sure you get that all the time, people saying, "I've written a book and I don't have the faintest idea of what to do to get it published." And the obvious answer (which they should know) is that if they go down to a library, there is a whole shelf full of books talking about manuscript preparation and how to submit a manuscript. I mean this is not difficult stuff to find out. If you can't go and find it out, maybe you're missing something.
