Goodreads asked Ben Waggoner:

What’s your advice for aspiring writers?

Ben Waggoner OK, I know it's just the Goodreads bot posing this question, but I'll play along until I get a question from an actual person. . . This has been said often, by far better writers than I, but the way to become a writer is to write. Not sit around and wait for the perfect burst of inspiration to strike -- that's nice when it happens, but you have to learn to write well even when the inspiration is not flowing. Even when you have to drag yourself to your computer, typewriter, quill pen, or whatever you use -- you have to develop what Germans call Sitzfleisch, "sitting-down muscle", the ability to sit yourself down and persevere.

That's why I like National Novel Writing Month, at least as a useful exercise. Ideally, we'd celebrate every month as NaNoWriMo and crank out 1666 words every day. Unrealistic, yes, but. . .

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