I would never tell myself, you have to write 20 pages today or something. But I do try to show up. Read what I wrote, fix things.

If a news camera shows up, people will line up, they want to be seen. But at the same time they want both to be chosen and not singled out. I think that is an endless struggle within most.

The writer's job, after all, is not to dictate meaning, but to give the reader enough pieces to create his or her own satisfying meaning. The story is truly finished—and meaning is made—not when the author adds the last period, but when the reader enters the story and fills that little ambiguous space, completing the circuit, letting the power flow through.

When you mention to people growing up in Cleveland they bring up the river catching on fire, or LeBron James leaving, they have these references, but no one imagines ending up there.

You don't feel like smiling? Then what? Force yourself to smile. Act as if you were already happy, and that will tend to make you happy.

If you told people you were moving to Ohio, they wouldn't congratulate you. They'd say "OH WHY would you move there?" as if that was something that happened to you and you had to deal with.

I would never tell myself, you have to write 20 pages today or something. But I do try to show up. Read what I wrote, fix things.