Joseph asked Bobby Underwood:

When it comes to writing, what's one of the most important things you've learned??

Bobby Underwood Sorry I didn't see this question earlier, must have missed the notification. The answer is probably as simple as something both John D. MacDonald and Gustave Flaubert spoke about, and something Somerset Maugham said. MacDonald said you had to write for yourself above anyone else, and Flaubert, earlier, went as far as stating the only way to create something beautiful was for a writer to write for himself. The essence being, I suppose, that if you love the story, someone else will too. As to style, I believe Maugham was correct in regard to literary pretension, feeling that a writer calling attention to himself rather than the story was a detriment to the story. Being in love with the story you're writing, whether it's a short one or a lengthier one, and sliding into the narrative almost covertly, helps a reader get lost in the narrative, rather than stopping to wow over some seventy-eight word sentence filled with arcane words and questionable punctuation that only serve to call attention to the writer, and away from the actual story. Maugham's actual quote is: "A good style should show no effort. What is written should seem a happy accident."

At the end of a story I've written, some piece of my soul I've put out there, I'd much rather have someone love the story, and not think of me at all initially, but what they've just experienced. That way, later, when they do think of me, hopefully it's as a great storyteller. I'd rather be remembered that way, as a storyteller, and a writer, rather than an author, as Mickey Spillane once said. :-)

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