Responses to “Why Wait?”

Last week in this blog I presented a letter from Diana, an enthusiastic twelve-year-old writer. She asked me for help publishing the novels she has written. And she headed her e-mail with a very pertinent question, “Why wait?”

I answered her personally, but as I did I began to feel …well, rather out of touch. Forty years ago when I began publishing, a twelve year old, no matter how talented, wouldn’t have had the remotest chance of being published. In fact, focusing on publication would have l...