Goodreads asked Robert Carter:

What’s your advice for aspiring writers?

Robert Carter Would-be writers MUST apply discipline to the exercise of compiling say 80,000 well-chosen words. Without discipline, it’s almost impossible. So the best help you can get is to develop a habit. Set aside a regular time when you do nothing else but write, and never miss a session. For people who can manage that every day, the total soon builds up. If you can write 1,000 words a day for 100 days, you will have created the first draft of a novel in 4 months. Then it’s just a question of editing, and editing is much easier than creating on a blank page. A really good tip is to print your novel on paper and put it in a drawer for at least 30 days. When you come back to it, you will find that household gremlins have re-arranged all the words and made it read like garbage. You will find the second draft is so much better. And the third draft ? You can probably be proud of that one. Some of my scenes have had fifteen drafts before I was happy with them. Re-writing is essential. It is the absolute key to quality.

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