Never open a book with weather. There are exceptions. If you happen to be Barry Lopez, who has more ways to describe ice and snow than an Eskimo, you can do all the weather reporting you want.

Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.

After 58 years you'd think writing would get easier. It doesn't. If you're lucky, you become harder to please. That's all right, it's still a pleasure.

It doesn't have to make sense, it just has to sound like it does.

What do you tell a man with two black eyes? Nothing, he's already been told twice.

It's my attempt to remain invisible, not distract the reader from the story with obvious writing.

There are 500 million people on Facebook, but what are they saying to each other? Not much.