A responsibility of literature is to make people awake, present, alive. If the writer wanders, then the reader, too, will wander.

Indefinite plans get dubious results.

So even though I couldn't bear writing about cancer, I faced it every day.

This is the practice school of writing. Like running, the more you do it, the better you get at it.

Learning to write is not a linear process. There is no logical A-to-B-to-C way to become a good writer. One neat truth about writing cannot answer it all. There are many truths. To do writing practice means to deal ultimately with your whole life.

Be awake to the details around you, but don't be self-conscious.

Can we walk that thin line between constant change and continuation? And in the middle of this flux, feel gratitude but not hold on? Gratitude greases the joints to let us let go, and at the same time to stop and realize we received something. Gratitude is the most developed and mature of human emotions.