1. Give yourself permission for your writing to be important.
2. Seek help, accept help.
3. Use the internet as a valuable tool for research, help finding writer's groups and publishers, and to promote yourself online to reach a wider audience.
4. Remember why you started writing or figure out why you are writing.
5. Have a plan! What do you want to accomplish? with your writing, with your promotion, when you go to a Con...
6. Much easier to find an audience if you make a personal connection. Face to face is best, but make sure you are an actual person online, not just another random website or blog.
7. I didn't get around to actually saying this at the panel but FINISH ONE PROJECT BEFORE YOU START ANOTHER ONE!!!! O.K., so I know that some people on other panels disagreed with me on this one and said to move on to another project if you get stuck on your current project, but it takes an incredible amount of discipline to finish a project once you have moved on. Instead, I would recommend that you attempt to work on a different part of the SAME project to try to get past sticking points. In a novel, move to another chapter. If you are having trouble with the beginning or middle of a short story, skip to the end. This has really helped me in the past. Please, trust me on this or you will have half-a-dozen unfinished projects that you cannot submit.
8. Write.
9. Have people look at what you have written and give you feedback, but make sure that they are people who like to read things similar to what you have written (ex. make sure your writing group has members of the same or similar genre as you).
10. Submit your work. Might as well start with big publishers (knowing that they have a much longer process), but smaller presses are also valid nowadays. Just beware of organizations who want you to pay huge sums for them to publish your book.
11. Self publication is much more accessible than it used to be, but be wary that you are responsible for all editing, formatting, promotion, etc. And again beware of self-publication packages that cost exorbitant amounts.