You need to surround yourself with positive people, otherwise the negativity of others can overwhelm you and push you toward quitting. Find someone who appreciates what you do and write for them. Lastly, you need to genuinely LOVE writing. If you don't love it---if it doesn't come from your heart---you will quit long before you achieve success.
I would like for people to speak about my work in the same breath as the other great classics of fantasy literature. I would love for Aenya to sit beside Middle Earth, Hogwarts, Fantastica, Xanth, and Westeros.
I suppose it depends at what stage in my life I was at. If I could go back to when I was six, I might suggest that I broaden my horizons, tell myself to consider other career paths.
God ... that is quite the question! I don't honestly know when or why I started writing. For as far back as I can remember, I've been telling stories, to my friends and to myself. I used to tape record myself telling stories, because I didn't know how to write. But I know that by age six, I had decided to become an author.
There are a million different ways to tell a story. But what it all boils down to is this: good writing has to interest the reader. How you go about that varies. No formula works for everyone, because every reader is different, and looks for different things in a story. So, at the end of the day, you just have to find out what YOU love as a reader, what gets you excited, and cater to those readers with the same interests.