Many people ask for advice. And I love giving advice. But often I can tell they’re asking for the shortcut. What’s the way around all the work? And I don’t want to give shortcuts… It can make you feel stodgy, it can make you seem elitist in some way. And I don’t that’s the argument at all. In a way we’re all self-published. We’re all doing the work we can to get our stuff out there. But to me those ladders are there not to keep you away but to make you a better writer. And that’s what I always say: you owe yourself a lot of rejection letters, you owe yourself a lot of missed opportunities and failure. Because that’s how you’ll get good.