I tried writing fiction as a little kid, but had a teacher humiliate me, so didn't write again until I was a senior in college.

A cliché is like a coin that has been handled too much. Once language has been overly handled, it no longer leaves a clear imprint.

I tried writing fiction as a little kid, but had a teacher humiliate me, so didn't write again until I was a senior in college.

How could anybody confuse truth with beauty, I thought as I looked at him. Truth came with sunken eyes, bony or scarred, decayed. Its teeth were bad, its hair gray and unkempt. While beauty was empty as a gourd, vain as a parakeet. But it had power. It smelled of musk and oranges and made you close your eyes in a prayer.

she’s not as pretty as you,” I said “But she’s a simpler girl,” my mother whispered.

I'm always looking for something new and interesting to say. And it can't be something I'm directly experiencing.

Pick a better verb. Most people use twenty verbs to describe everything from a run in their stocking to the explosion of an A-bomb.