Goodreads asked Gabe Oppenheim:

What’s your advice for aspiring writers?

Gabe Oppenheim If you're aspiring, you're already engaged in the activity itself. To hell with the "aspiring writer" tag. Once you've set yourself a goal, even you don't complete a single full sentence, you're in the trenches, struggling to create something. That's a writer, to me. The only value "aspiring writer" has -- and this does count for a bit -- is the way it deflects attention. It's a good way to tell people you write without sounding off-puttingly ambitious. But just know in your head/heart -- aspiration is another way to say breathing. You're doing it already.

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