How do I get started writing?

How do I get started writing? I want to write a book. How do I start? I want to write for magazines, but I've never written before. I hear those questions and more like them all the time. I tell everyone the same thing:

• Start writing. Buy a spiral bound notebook, grab a legal pad, get on your computer. But write.
• Buy a copy of The Writer's Market
• Subscribe to Writer's Digest
• Keep writing while you read.
• Read! Yes. Read! Read everything you can get your hands on that interests you. Unless you know what other people are writing you won't know what you like or don't like about the genre you're writing about.
• Don't talk about writing. Don't tell your family, friends, spouse that you're "going to be a writer." Just write. Until you're published or getting paid there's not a lot to talk about and it just really drains your energy. If you must talk about being a writer, join a writer's group. They will understand. Your friends, family and co-workers (unless they too are writers) won't.
• If you have fantasies of churning out great prose, making millions, being discovered, being the next J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter author), I hate to break it to you. You have a better chance of winning the lottery. The only thing harder than writing, someone once said, is "wrestling alligators." I have to agree.

This is not what you wanted to hear, I know. But it is the truth. I know dozens of talented, brilliant, funny, gifted writers - and they're all plugging along not getting rich - but loving what they do anyway. You become a writer because you fall in love with words and story. You stay a writer because you can't not write.

So the question really is not how to get started, but if you'll stick with it once you do! Go ahead. Dabble. Start your book. Know that most authors who do finish a book make between $0 and $100 if they self-publish. If you're lucky to get picked up by a publishing house - the average advance - unless you're already famous, is about $1,500 to $3,000. Like I said. You don't do it for the money. If the money comes - and for a few it does - that's great. But if you're writing to get rich then good luck. In spite of what all the online ads say - the only ones making six figures a year are the ones selling those programs. Write for writing's sake. Write because it moves you, because you love writing. Everyone wants to write, but few follow through. Will you?