Goodreads asked Sean Murphy:

What’s your advice for aspiring writers?

Sean Murphy First and foremost: read and write all the time. It’s the most basic and ostensibly simple advice, but it’s crucial. I meet aspiring writers all the time who talk about what they want to do (or will do) “eventually.” Writing material that aspires to connect in a meaningful way with a broader audience involves hours and years of hard, often unfulfilling work. Don’t quit your day job, but treat your writing like it’s your life. Seek to execute sentences and scenes you haven’t encountered, even in books you admire. Work toward cultivating a unique style and ways to convey familiar –and unfamiliar—themes with honesty and originality. Turn off the writing involves lots of long, lonely hours. If you aren’t feeling it with all of your being, how can you hope to engage a potential reader? Above all, trust yourself and love yourself: writing is necessarily a solitary endeavor, but you are connecting yourself with a community of special human beings who have made our world demonstrably better. Celebrate the idea of contributing something of yourself to that tradition.television, shut off your phone, and understand the real dirty work that results in quality

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