If you want to write, I have one piece of advice. Write! And write and write and write! Write everything. Poems, stories, essays, letters, journals. Everything you can think of. Write often. Every single day if you can. That is how you will develop your writing muscles.

Find someone whose opinion you respect and ask that person what she likes about what you have written and what you might do better. Ask her what she doesn't understand, gets bored with, wants more of. And then rewrite! And rewrite and rewrite and rewrite! It's the only way to learn.

But wait, there is another arm to your learning. You must read, too. And read and read and read. Read the kinds of things you yourself want to write.

Stretch yourself and read work you would never think of writing yourself. Ask yourself which authors you love and why their work appeals to you. If something doesn't work for you, stop to consider why. Learn to read critically. Learn to read the way a writer reads, noticing how other writers accomplish what they do.

Beyond that, write what you love. If you love football, write about it. If nothing thrills you more than a walk in the woods, learn more about the woods, its plants and its creatures, then write about that. If you love to be scared, write ghost stories. If you write about something you really care about, the chances are good that you'll be able to make your readers care, too.

And finally, don't worry about trying to get published now. Except for those few places that are specifically set up to publish young people's writing, your chances of getting published are slim. But that doesn't matter. You can publish a book yourself, make the pictures and the cover, even makes copies and distribute it to family and friends.

More important, though, is that you simply keep writing. If you focus on getting published you will try to write what you think "the market" wants—and this is something I say to adults as much as to kids—you will write pieces that look like everybody else's. And that isn't what publishers are looking for. They want work that is new and fresh, but work that is written with the authority that comes from lots and lots of practice. And do you know what? If you keep writing, if you keep writing what you love—and then rewriting to make your work better—one day that new and fresh piece may come from you. And then you, too, will be published.

In the meantime, what matters is that writing is fun. I can't think of a better career than being a writer. I get to do what I most love to do every single day of my life. And if you love to write, you can do that, too. If you love to write, you are already a writer!