“Sir, I read your site avidly for my own self-protection and information and find you to be a good and prolific fiction author. I have my heart set on writing a novel. What tips might you offer for the young novelist?”
-Pedro
First, Pedro, good luck with your venture. I will do this as a list:
1. Solitude, time spent alone, is important for the fiction writer.
2. Lack of writing-induced stress is equally important, so if you have a woman in your life, it is best if she reads nothing you write concerning female characters. Women—even female novelists—suffer from a crushing lack of imagination. It is part of the female condition and you may not fix it. She will read herself into every female character and make you pay for writing.
3. Write nonfiction, as much as possible, to practice the mechanics when your story inspiration is low.
4. Read more nonfiction than fiction by at least a 3-1 margin.
5. Read mostly short fiction. Most novels are bad and lack the finer points found in their un-bloated cousin, the story.
6. Write short fiction.
7. Do not just write one novel, but a series of three or four. The publisher loses money on your first novel, breaks even on the second, makes a little on the third, and makes bank on the fourth. Developing you as a property costs money. Make it worth their while. Your chance of selling a one-off novel as an unknown is low.
8. Write in a genre that is selling but do something different. The themes you see now will be worn thin by the time your work comes out.
9. Find someone who is better with English than you are but lacks the spark to write, and engage them as an editor or proof reader. Make the corrections she suggests more often than not.
10. Write something every day.
11. Don’t get discouraged. Between those who are jealous and those who do not care, seeking approval of those around you is a recipe for writing-induced stress, which is worse for your cause than the everyday variety we escape in #1. If you publish something online, don’t read the reader comments.
tip #12: Be James Lafond. Just by this tip you'll have started and published 8 novelettes in the time it takes me to finish writing this comment.
Writing is a lot like weight lifting/Strength Training. You don't go into the gym the first day and expect to deadlift 400 pounds. Likewise, you can't go into a writing project expecting to bang out 50,000 words like it's nothing, even if your mortal soul depends on it.
Like Napoleon, you must Divide and Conquer. Start small; the most celebrated stories before the advent of the 20th century were short stories and novelettes (Edgar Allen Poe's works come to mind in terms of length). So when it comes to James' advice, 6 and 10 are most important.
Now this may be the nerdiest thing ever written in a comment upon this site, but you might want to consider looking around the internet for online roleplay groups. Think of something you're interested in, and I guarantee you there's an online roleplay group for it. Find the groups that post in a narrative fashion and join. This will help you with number 10 in a big way, to the point where you will think nothing of rocking out 5,000 words in a given session.
Happy writing!