I think I've learned to be mindful. I may not have taken the time to try to understand narrative techniques, let's say, with any rigor, if I did not also have to try to explain those techniques to someone else.

I revise like crazy. I start revising before the pen hits the paper.

With each draft, the work gets better, and usually that means tighter. It means getting the precise word, not the approximate word.

I was reading for understanding. I wanted to do to a reader what Salinger did for me.

As a writer you can and should expect to hear conflicting responses to your story.

A pure love is a selfless love, but can desire ever be selfless?

The universe may be tenderly indifferent to our fate, but we shouldn’t be. We are our brothers’ keepers. There is right, and there is wrong. There are consequences to our actions or inactions. Disregard can be an act of violence.