I often feared the ugliness of my mistakes.
Read MoreThe storyteller must look past what is, training their storytelling eye on what will be.
Read MoreMy mind, after all, looks like that TV sometimes.
Read MoreSpectacular failure is so much more memorable than success.
Read MoreEvery time I sit down to write, I’m not quite the same person I was the day before.
Read MoreTo write my best and live my best I must be free.
Read MoreThere is nothing like dying of thirst to appreciate a simple glass of water.
Read MoreI felt a bit like those snowballs sometimes, rapidly growing but also accidentally collecting a lot of junk in my mind along the way.
Read MoreIf you write without wanting to be read, speak without wanting to be heard, you’re a creature in conflict with yourself.
Read MoreI have to continually remind myself that not knowing, that axiomatic prerequisite for discovery, is not a cause for insecurity.
Read MoreI will never get up an hour earlier to ask, “Why bother?”
Read MoreNone of us ever want to stand as an example of how not to write, want to commit a crime for which there is no forgiveness.
Read MoreStories and essays and, for that matter, conversation itself, are not about winning.
Read MoreI used to get angry when I was young and I’d hear the loud applause after some band I loathed had finished one of their lousy songs.
Read MorePeople can be very convincing when they’re telling you how lousy they actually are.
Read MoreA good story is always in service to the one who’s telling it and the one who’s hearing it.
Read MoreSpeak first to the smiling faces and the others might come along.
Read MoreComplaints are many a story’s beginning, but never its end.
Read MoreThe tension of conflict has no real value unless it’s eventually followed by the release of resolution.
Read MoreIt is hard to believe sometimes that from something so small as an interesting idea can grow something so big as a book or a career.
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