Advice

Interviewer: What advice would you give to young people who may want to become writers?

Tristan Bancks: Probably don't … become a writer. No, I'm only joking. I think it's the best job in the world, I really do, getting lost in your own ideas and being able to spend months within these worlds that you create. So I'd say, if you want to become a writer, it's that old advice of write a lot, write every day, whether you write a page or three pages or ten minutes, try to be strict about doing that every day. And before long you'll have filled up a whole book with ideas. And start your pen moving and don't stop it moving. That's the only rule you should have when you're writing. And if you start whingeing about, ‘Blerh, I don't know what to write … this is terrible … I've got no story ideas,’ you get sick of whingeing after half a page and suddenly these little pearls start to come forth. So I'd say write every day, be strict about it, and don't try to make everything perfect. Be okay about writing rot to begin with because eventually something interesting will come out.

Interviewer: Thank you very much for joining us for Writers Talk 2009.

Tristan: Sure.