Nobody Cares Much Whether You

I Have Students That I Tell, "if Your Book Doesn't Sell Or You Can't Publish It, Write Another Book. Quit Sitting Around." The Publishing World Is A Business, But It's Not Any Big Deal. An Editor Is Not Your Guru. Your Agent Is Not Your Guru.

Choose Your Tools Carefully, But Not So Carefully That You Get Uptight Or Spend More Time At The Stationery Store Than At Your Writing Table.

Original Details Are Very Ordinary, Except To The Mind That Sees Extraordinariness. It's Not That We Need To Go To The Hopi Mesas To See Greatness; We Need To View What We Already Have In A Different Way.

Life Is Not Orderly. No Matter How We Try To Make It So, Right In The Middle Of It We Die, Lose A Leg, Fall In Love, Or Drop A Jar Of Applesauce.

This Is The Practice School Of Writing. Like Running, The More You Do It, The Better You Get At It. Some Days You Don't Want To Run And You Resist Every Step Of The Three Miles, But You Do It Anyway. You Practice Whether You Want To Or Not. You Don't Wait Around For Inspiration And A Deep Desire To Run ... That's How Writing Is Too ... One Of The Main Aims In Writing Practice Is To Learn To Trust Your Own Mind And Body; To Grow Patient And Nonaggressive.