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Sometimes hanging out in “writing advice” circles, you see people claiming you have to come to your writing career the same way that worked for them. Some of them are immediately dismissive of anyone who thinks they can sell the first novel they wrote, even if they spent a lot of time and energy looking into how to write it and came up with something great. Some of them say playing around in fanfiction communities doesn’t teach you anything about originality or publishable writing, even though many people who enjoy that pastime have honed their talent and learned how to incorporate feedback better than those who only pursue original writing from the start. Some of them say you just KNOW you’re a writer because you’ve done it all your life and there’s no way you can start later in life because if you were a True Writer, the bug would have bitten you earlier. And some of them say if you’ve written a bunch of unsuccessful books you’ll probably just never get the knack and you should do something else. GUESS WHAT? Nobody’s got the formula that works for everyone, and there is room for all of us.