Goodreads asked Andrew Dickson:

What’s your advice for aspiring writers?

Andrew Dickson The only thing that qualifies you as a writer, I think, is whether you write: it's a verb. You become a writer by writing. The world is full of novels and plays and non-fiction works that people won't ever get around to writing, so just by putting pen on paper or fingers on a keyboard you're ahead of the game. You won't be very good at first -- none of us is very good, in the grand scheme of things -- but you have to keep going. It's like something muscular, you have to exercise and tone it. Even if you can only find just 20 minutes at the beginning or end of the day, write a diary, read critically, make notes ... anything. Only by doing that will you find out what you want to write, and only by doing *that* will you find a subject that gets properly under your skin.

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