It used to be with chocolate. I would put chocolate in my studio and say, "You know, Nat, there's this chocolate you can have if you get over there." And usually if I got over there, I would start writing. Sometimes I need get out of the house and go to a café and write. Sometimes I'll write with other friends to get myself going. And sometimes I just say "Ok, Nat, enough. Go one hour. Keep your hand going." I'll do whatever it takes.

In the end, you have to just sit down, shut up, and write.

Use loneliness. Its ache creates urgency to reconnect with the world. Take that aching and use it to propel you deeper into your need for expression - to speak, to say who you are.

Poetry has never been a favorite American pastime.

Kill the idea of the lone, suffering artist. Don't make it any harder on yourself.

Let's say I've directed that [writing] energy into writing my latest book but suddenly, I really want to write about an onion. I don't say to myself, "No, you have stay on the subject," because I know that the longer I stay on the subject the more boring I get. So, if my mind wants to write about an onion, it might be a deeper way to go into what I'm working on, even though it might seem irrelevant. This is how I've learned to follow my mind.

It is simply that person's time. Ours will come in this lifetime or the next. No matter. Continue to practice.