Exercise the writing muscle every day.

Ideas are the cheapest part of the writing. They are free. The hard part is what you do with ideas you've gathered.

Folklore is the perfect second skin. From under its hide, we can see all the shimmering, shadowy uncertainties of the world.

How often is the passing of one storm only a prelude to another.

In fantasy stories we learn to understand the differences of others, we learn compassion for those things we cannot fathom, we learn the importance of keeping our sense of wonder. The strange worlds that exist in the pages of fantastic literature teach us a tolerance of other people and places and engender an openness toward new experience. Fantasy puts the world into perspective in a way that 'realistic' literature rarely does. It is not so much an escape from the here-and-now as an expansion of each reader's horizons.

Take a step, breathe in the world, give it out again in story, poem, song, art.

Growth in the ability to write comes in spurts.