Goodreads asked Erik Henry Vick:

What’s your advice for aspiring writers?

Erik Henry Vick Quit aspiring and start perspiring. There is no better way to learn how to write than to write. Get started and write as much as you can. Read twice that much. Read outside your preferred genre as well as inside it. Read the greats, read your favorites, read everything you can get your hands on.

Also, every how-to writing book must be subject to one rule: does this help me write? No method is good if it doesn't drive you on to write. Don't get locked into the idea that you have to have silence to write, for instance. Don't allow yourself to be trapped into only working in one particular room or place. Mix it up until you know what works best.

Keep writing. When you are tempted to quit, take an hour or a day off, but keep writing!

There are a lot of websites that can help you learn -- I prefer scribophile.com -- but beware the time sink! It's very tempting to jump on to scrib and go play in the forums or do a hundred critiques or edit your profile page to add more funny T-shirt sayings, but at the end of the day (and you might have sensed this coming) you gotta write, right?

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