It is awfully easy to be hard-boiled about everything in the daytime, but at night it is another thing.

The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day ... you will never be stuck. Always stop while you are going good and don't think about it or worry about it until you start to write the next day. That way your subconscious will work on it all the time. But if you think about it consciously or worry about it you will kill it and your brain will be tired before you start.

Not the why but the what.

Work every day. No matter what has happened the day or night before, get up and bite on the nail.

Never mistake movement for action

I kept this to remind me of you trying to brush away the Villa Rossa from your teeth in the morning, swearing and eating aspirin and cursing harlots. Every time I see that glass I think of you trying to clean your conscience with a toothbrush.

No subject is terrible if the story is true, if the prose is clean and honest, and if it affirms courage and grace under pressure.