Keep a small can of WD-40 on your desk-away from any open flames-to remind yourself that if you don't write daily, you will get rusty.

I don't smoke because I like to do so, but because it makes me pay cigarette taxes, which helps build roads and water supplies.

Think about all the selfish non-smokers out there, driving around on asphalt, drinking water out of the tap, not even thinking about how smokers' taxes help pay for it all.

There's a ton of truth in Flannery O'Connor's notion that "Anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days."

Keep a small can of WD-40 on your desk-away from any open flames-to remind yourself that if you don't write daily, you will get rusty.

Don't try to outguess what's going on in publishing, and write what you want to write.

I'm a bad, inconsistent person, but at least I'm not a member of the Tea Party griping incoherently about too much government, but flashing my Medicare card every other day to a doctor because I'm 400 pounds overweight.