Try This

Whatever I learned, I no longer know. The little I still know, I've guessed.

-Chamfort-

When I was a child I used to pass all of my compositions to an ex-MP whom my dad used to know. I would go to the copying shop where I would have photocopies made, as those were the days when there was no computer at home and certainly no copier. Then I would put the pages on my dad's desk, next to his glasses, so that he would remember to pick them up and take them to the shop, where he would give them to the old man next time he came in to have his hair done. My dad said that the man would read them immediately as he sat in the armchair waiting for his turn. Sometimes he would have very specific comments but the overall message was always the same: 'Tell your daughter to read a lot'. I don't remember when he died exactly, but I guess it must have happened at some point before I went to university, as I remember that the last few essays I passed on were about current affairs, as I tried my hand at being a reporter of sorts, and about French literature of the nineteenth century, which I didn't even particularly like. Strange that the best writing advice came from a man I never even met, and yet he was my first bona fide beta reader: to write well, you must read a lot.  

Make a list of all writing advice you've collated in your mind through the years and write about the one suggestion that turned out to be most important to you. 

Comments

[Amelia]

writing from the heart ;)

Thanks for amazing comment on my blog . . . .there is so much going on out there in the world, reality, my head, others heads, sometimes if all feels, well . . . . .I just don't know. like a dream or a play that some-one's writing and I'm living . . . . . .

Amelia.x