In The Army You Feel

I Have Always Thought That Heaven Is A Place For People Who Had Had A Good Life, But That Is Not True. God Is Merciful And Way Too Good To Make It So. The Heaven Is Just A Place For People Who Could Not Be Really Happy While Living On Earth. I Was Once Told That People Who Commit Suicide Are Taken Back On Earth To Repeat Life From The Very Beginning Because If They Did Not Like It Once, It Did Not Mean They Would Not Like It The Next Time. But Those Who Did Not Fit In On Earth At All, Ended Up Here. Everyone Comes To Heaven In Their Own Way.

It Took A Lot To Understand That The Interest In Both Writing A Story And Reading It Is Not In The Objective Dangers Someone Takes. You Don't Have To Fight Snakes Or Wake Up In A Strange Apartment To Have A Story; It's About What Goes On Inside Your Mind And Soul.

I See Creative-writing Classes As Some Sort Of Aa Meeting. It Is More Of A Support Group For People Who Write Than An Actual Course In Which You Learn Writing Skills. This Support Group Is Extremely Important Because There Is Something Very Lonely About Writing.

I Often Give This Metaphor Where I Say That Writing Short Fiction Is Like Surfing, While Writing A Novel Is Like Navigating With Your Car. So When You Navigate With Your Car, You Want To Get Somewhere. When You Surf, You Don't Want To Get Somewhere, You Just Don't Want To Fall Off Your Board.

My Mother, For Example, Told The German Officer Not To Kill Her. She'd Make It Worth His While. And Then, When They Were Doing It, She Pulled A Knife Out Of Her Belt And Sliced Open His Chest, Just Like She Used To Open Chicken Breasts To Stuff With Rice For The Sabbath Meal.