Writers should take advantage of their surroundings, if only to trigger memories that juice their writing.

My dark comic edge is the end result of trying to use humor to maintain my sanity growing up in a dysfunctional family in Honolulu.

It's no fun watching you disintegrate. Where is the old "I Love Myself" mantra? You need to feel you are indeed lovable and that your life matters. Listen. The birds are singing your name.

Love is a tough, ever hopeful thing, not easily destroyed.

Writers should take advantage of their surroundings, if only to trigger memories that juice their writing.

Anyone who wants to be a writer should, if given the opportunity, hang out with "real writers," that is, poets or writers who are lions in literature, semi-lions, or published authors.

I learned that famous writers are people with foibles like anyone else and this helped me realize reaching their level of notoriety wasn't impossible.