Goodreads asked Michael Van Vleet:

What’s your advice for aspiring writers?

Michael Van Vleet Don't ask living writers for advice. The world hasn't decided if they knew what they were doing yet. Living writers are oscillating bodies whipped between arrogant confidence and face-rending doubt, which gives off the necessary electrical charge-- this rapid changing of states-- required to fuel the creation of the unnecessary.

Occasionally of the actually-necessary.

But that's for the reader to decide and the reader lives somewhere in the future.

I guess my advice is: You wanna write? Maybe go write. It's as meaningful an activity as anything. Some people go to remote wilderness areas and stack rocks on top of each other. Self-expression takes strange forms. We're not here for very long.

Please stop asking questions. I am a living writer and my opinion has an indeterminate value.

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