Goodreads asked Neil Sharpson:

What’s your advice for aspiring writers?

Neil Sharpson The odds against you are huge. But they are not unalterable. When you sit down to start writing your first chapter, the odds against that book ever being published are a million to one. But that number can be brought down. Everything you write, every query you send in, every connection you make, every workshop, every note, every rejection, it all chips away at that huge big number. Finish the book? Congratulations, you've gone from a million to one to 500,000 to one. Got an agent? Now you're 100 to 1. Got a better agent? 10 to 1.
Never gave up? Kept going no matter what? Refused to take no for an answer? 1 in 1.

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