Write Fearlessly. Write Within Yourself
I’m not a big fan of AI, though it’s clearly here to stay. Also, admittedly, when I need, say, an image of an anthropomorphized duck with a monocle writing in an ancient journal – which, because of my enduring love of roleplaying games, I occasionally do – it’s pretty handy.
Read MoreWhen I decided as a young man that I wanted to write books professionally, my life, unbeknownst to me at the time, quickly became an ongoing lesson in acceptance and rejection.
Read MoreIt's not uncommon for a new writer to review their life and conclude that nothing they did was worthy of a story. Nothing was important enough or surprising enough or shocking enough.
Read MoreWithout interest and curiosity and excitement there’s no pleasure in doing anything.
Read MoreI’ve been interviewing a lot of memoirists lately, and I’m always reminded when I do so of who I think the author might be when I read their book, and who I discover they actually are when I meet them.
Read MoreYou’re never going to get it right. Not the way you think you should. Not the way you think someone else has.
Read MoreFree speech sometimes seems like a good idea for ourselves but maybe not for other people.
Read MoreIndulging ones curiosity is not generally considered polite behavior, a fact that becomes strangely relevant if, as a writer, I wish to share the fruits of my passion with other people.
Read MoreSome writers’ stories seem so original or unusual that the reader might feel like the author has access to some special repository, the keys to which are perhaps handed out at birth.
Read MoreWhen you sit with the ideas that come and go, you will eventually notice the part of you that chooses what to pursue and what to ignore is as still as sleep.
Read MoreTechnically, it’s my yard, yet all this growing happens without my consent.
Read MoreWhen you’re pursuing a dream, such as publishing a book, it’s very easy to believe that success, however you describe it, will change something about you and your life
Read MoreIt’s never too late. I know you can feel sometimes as if your best creative days are behind you, that without the furtive, twitchy energy of youth, nothing you write will be good enough, or that the whole process of looking for a publisher and then promoting your book you will just exhaust you the way the idea of raising little children again seems like signing up for bootcamp.
Read MoreA good story, I decided, shouldn’t preserve anything; it should carry us forward.
Read MoreI have always thought of myself as ambitious, which, if pressed, I’d have once admitted was the steady and quiet desire to make something of myself.
Read MoreThe circularity of our journey often nagged at me once we’d returned home. What were we doing with ourselves anyway? Where were we going?
Read MoreI had to break myself of a habit once I became self-employed. If I wanted, I could chuck every supposed responsibility and spend the entire day watching reruns of Seinfeld. I liked Seinfeld, but this doesn’t actually sound like a fun way to spend a day.
Read MoreIf you’re a writer, every time you sit down to work you choose – whether you acknowledge it or not – to face the unknown. That’s the only place you’ll find your story.
Read MoreI never want to be late, or rude, or bored, or angry, or tired, or scared, or depressed, but I do love to tell stories.
Read MoreOnly you know the ending to your story, and only you know who you love and what you love – and love, of course, the is most creative force in the universe.
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