It is all too easy as an artist to allow the shape of our career to be dictated to us by others. We can so easily wait to be chosen. Such passivity invites despair. To remain healthy and vital, artists must stay proactive in their own behalf.

Pivotal to a happy writing life is a practice of daily personal writing.

All change can be expansive in potential. The choice is ours.

The grace to be a beginner is always the best prayer for an artist.

We talk about self-expression but need to pause and remember that self-expression requires a self to express.

I am what I am again: a writer. I have metabolized the injury into art.

Perfectionism has nothing to do with getting it right. It has nothing to do with fixing things. It has nothing to do with standards. Perfectionism is a refusal to let yourself move forward. It is a loop-an obsessive, debilitating closed system that causes you to get stuck in the details of what you are writing or painting or making and to lose sight of the whole.