When I was a teenager, I got into SF, quite heavily, and that too has had a major impact on my writing.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
It took me a couple of years after I got out of Berkeley before I dared to start writing. That academic mind-set - which was kind of shallow in my case anyway - had begun to fade.
Advice to beginning SF writers? Write a lot, finish what you write, and when it's done, keep sending it out for quite awhile.
There's certainly more new SF available than when I started writing. That means there's also more bad SF available. Whether there is also more good is a matter for future historians of the field.
I grew up reading SF in the '70s and '80s, and I like fast, thought-provoking plots that take you places in fully realized worlds.
I do not read SF as much as I used to. It's too much like a busman's holiday.
I didn't study writing. I didn't write anything substantial until I got to California.
I didn't really start writing music or lyrics or turning them into songs until I went to San Francisco.
I spent several years acquiring the obsessive, day-to-day discipline that's needed if you want to write professionally, then several more, highly valuable years studying fiction writing at the University of Iowa.
I write about kids growing up, I write a lot about schools and parents, and all of my experiences with those things have been suburban experiences.
Some people become passionate readers and fans of science fiction during childhood or adolescence. I picked up on SF somewhat later than that; my escape reading of choice during my youth was historical novels, and one of my favorite writers was Mary Renault.