Best writing advice

I saw on Twitter the other day (via someone I know answering it), the question 'What's the best writing advice you would give to someone who wants to become a writer?' My knee-jerk response was 'Don't do it, because you aren't one.'

What I mean by this is that - at least in my personal experience - you don't become a writer. Either you are one, or you aren't. There's plenty of advice to be had on how to become a better writer, or how to become a published writer... but certainly my case I always was one - certainly as soon as I started reading books. 

While I was at school, I made comics. I wrote stories.  My first novel was written in my teens (thankfully now lost). I had a first career that wasn't about being a writer, but I still wrote in my spare time, sending articles off to magazines and writing a handful of novels. And eventually writing took over entirely.

If you are a writer, you can't help yourself. You just do it. I'm writing this when I should be doing something else. I rarely go a day without writing something (and I don't just mean a shopping list). It's a compulsion. It is part of what I am.

So, if you really need to ask, don't bother. See above re being a better/more effective/published/successful/etc writer. But don't expect help to become one if you aren't already.

And that's my best writing advice...

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