I still encourage anyone who feels at all compelled to write to do so. I just try to warn people who hope to get published that publication is not all it is cracked up to be. But writing is. Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to do - the actual act of writing - turns out to be the best part. It's like discovering that while you thought you needed the tea ceremony for the caffeine, what you really needed was the tea ceremony. The act of writing turns out to be its own reward.

If you fixate on the big picture, the whole shebang, the overview, you miss the stitching.

My heart was broken and my head was just barely inhabitable

The very first thing I tell my new students on the first day of a workshop is that good writing is about telling the truth. We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do not seem to share this longing, which is one reason they write so very little. But we do. We have so much we want to say and figure out.

Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises.

I've seen prayers answered. But often, in my experiences, if you get what you pray for, you've really shortchanged yourself.

Everybody thinks their opinion is the right one. If they didn't, they would get a new one.