Goodreads asked Andrew Armacost:

What’s your advice for aspiring writers?

Andrew Armacost Either you feel compelled to write or you don't. It's not something I would ever encourage anyone to force themselves to do. Writing is a solitary, anti-social, and therefore lonely activity, in many ways. And if you actually try to find an audience, you will face monster gales of rejection. So really, writing is only something you should do if you feel that you cannot stop yourself.

Now, assuming you can't stop yourself, my advice is this....write a book. Show it to no one. Write another one. Show it to no one. Write a third. Show it to no one. Now go back to you first book. Do you still think it's worth a damn? If so, then enter into the process of validating and editing: you will now be able to do so with more distance. If your first book is worthless, and now you know it, it's time to revisit your second, and then your third, and so on. Now repeat the process.

Oh yeah, and don't let writing get in the way of your reading--you'll never grow, if you're shackled to the limited traffic of your own mind.

Lastly, write under a pen name. It'll make you more honest and insulate your personal life from your writing life. I now realize that I should've done this from the start.

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