Goodreads asked Cynthia Sharp:

What’s your advice for aspiring writers?

Cynthia Sharp Read as much as you can and write whenever inspiration hits! Put time in your schedule for writing, whether it's ten minutes a day or four hours a day, or even just once a week. Choose an amount of time that is possible to commit to. Trust yourself and know you are on the way. Every step you take in reading, writing and studying literature formally or informally is moving you forward. Establish a writing schedule if you can. Then, have sabbaticals, especially mini ones, each hour and day. Take a few moments to pray, breathe, stretch and be. These are activities of a balanced, healthy, full time writing life - to value every moment of writing time, even if just to meditate, read, proofread, address envelopes for contests or to research symbols and locations online. Look up meanings and keep a list, so that when you start your next piece, you’re ready to go.

Teach or tutor language arts or literature. Join a writing community. Take yourself out for coffee with a notebook. Train yourself to remember thoughts that come while walking in nature. Keep a gratitude journal. Work that imagery into poems.

And always open the file! I open the file every day, even when I’m sure I don’t have anything creative to add to it. Even if I just check it for grammar, or look up words because opening the dictionary brings me to words I am too tempted by to pass up and I write them on a vocabulary sheet for students and myself, until, inevitably, they find their way into poems.

Enjoy all that is around you, in its own time, and know, you are moving forward.

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