Aren't hidden doors the most alluring? The old stories point that out surely. Even the greatest heroes and heroines fall under the spell of a locked door.

Get up from your desk and wander outside occasionally. To be a good writer one needs to be a good observer, and there isn't a lot to be observed at desk level.

The tales of Elfland do not stand or fall on their actuality but on their truthfulness, their speaking to the human condition, the longings we all have for the Faerie Other.

A mist. A great mist. It covered the entire kingdom. And everyone in it - the good people and the not so good, the young people and the not-so-young, and even Briar Rose's mother and father fell asleep. Everyone slept: lords and ladies, teacher and tummlers, dogs and doves, rabbits and rabbitzen and all kinds of citizens. So fast asleep they were, they were not able to wake up for a hundred years.

You are a name, not a number. Never forget that name, whatever they tell you here. You will always be Chaya—life—to me.

Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize up.

Intuition works best when you remember that “tuition” is part of it. You need to have paid ahead of time (ie done your prep work) so as to prepare the ground for intuition.