Suck

Junot Diaz, one of America's most celebrated writers tells his audience that it's important to "suck a lot" before an aspiring writer could be said to have made it creatively.

He would prefer to hold a book that "sucks a lot" in his hand, than a "fucking book in the head" of a genius.

So much advice flows in from so many writers.

From Jeffrey Eugenides came the immortal words, borrowed from Nadine Gordimer, "write like you were dead."