When I first moved to town, I had a small child who was — just barely — verbal. This meant I spent a lot of time walking around with a baby carriage and day dreaming about writing. One of my favorite fantasies was “If I’m going to get published, I wish I’d come back and tell me that, so I wouldn’t despair…” So, in that spirit, ten things I would tell my younger-writer self, if I could.
10 – Read some up to date books. Find out the styles and conventions of what is being done now, not twenty years ago.
9 – Find a critique group, ASAP.
8 – Make sure it’s a critique group for genre fiction.
7 – Start sending things out, instead of waiting for a psychic editor to call and say “I know you have some wonderful…”
6 – Stop being afraid to send things out. Believe me, the editors have seen MUCH worse.
5- Stop taking rejections personally. Nine times out of ten it really is “We can’t use it now.”
4 – Start going to the cons you can afford, so you can put faces with the names and so they know you’re a real person too.
3 – Read the trade magazines, not just the “how to write Magazines.”
2 – That beloved world you’ve been working on for years? Kill it. It’s way too weird.
1 – Yes, you’ll eventually get published, if you work very hard. You’ll stay published if you continue working very hard. And, oh, yeah Don’t GET COCKY!
According To Hoyt 
Great advice! ::scribbling madly::
Would you, then, have listened to you, now?
Lin
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I hope not. I’d probably have given up.
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What! Kill my weird world! iiieeee! Die, Heretic!
Looking at your list, I’m really glad I didn’t get serious about writing until I was well past grown up. I still have enough hangups to be my own worst enemy, but I used to be much much worse.
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No kidding… I never even dreamed that I would even be ABLE to write, let alone be able to write good stuff. I still remember how HORRIBLE my first attempts were.
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