I walked all those miles, I learned all those lessons. It's as if my new life was the gift I got at the end of a long struggle.

People do support themselves as artists and writers, so there's no need to be all doom and gloom about it. You just have to push forward. You have to follow your vision and hope for the best. You have to write for love.

Jump high and hard with intention and heart.

Healing is a small and ordinary and very burnt thing. And it's one thing and one thing only: it's doing what you have to do.

Nobody will protect you from your suffering. You can't cry it away or eat it away or starve it away or walk it away or punch it away or even therapy it away. It's just there, and you have to survive it. You have to endure it. You have to live through it and love it and move on and be better for it and run as far as you can in the direction of your best and happiest dreams across the bridge that was built by your own desire to heal.

I write to find what I have to say. I edit to figure out how to say it right.

A few times a year I'll remember that I love old literature, too. Charlotte Brontë's "Jane Eyre" is one of my 10 favorite books. I have to go out of my way to remember to pick up a book like that, but when I do I'm blown away by how very relevant it still is.