Goodreads asked Shahid Insaf:

What’s your advice for aspiring writers?

Shahid Insaf 1. You have to WANT to write. Good writing cannot be forced. Writing should be for its own pleasure. Successes will follow depending upon the quality of your writing and your later marketing efforts. If you are writing solely with the goal of monetary success or fame in mind, you're probably doing something self-defeating.
2. Spend most of your initial time crystalizing your plot. Some writers are seat-of-your-pants writers. They write spontaneously, and go where their imagination and characters take them. I have found this approach to be somewhat exhausting and unpredictable.
3. Fill your work with conflict. A work of fiction without high-stakes conflict becomes insipid.
4. Read in order to write. Read fiction and non-fiction and read books about how to write fiction and non-fiction.
5. Don't give up. Never give up.

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