When you write, don't say, "I'm going to write a poem." That attitude will freeze you right away. Sit down with the least expectation of yourself; say, "I am free to write the worst junk in the world."

I had cancer for fourteen months and wrote a memoir about the experience.

Nobody cares much whether you write or not. You just have to do it

Anything we fully do is an alone journey.

Choose your tools carefully, but not so carefully that you get uptight or spend more time at the stationery store than at your writing table.

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

Once you have learned to trust your own voice and allowed that creative force inside you to come out, you can direct it to write short stories, novels, and poetry, do revisions, and so on. You have the basic tool to fulfill your writing dreams. But beware. This type of writing will uncover other dreams you have, too-going to Tibet, being the first woman president of the United States, building a solar studio in New Mexico-and they will be in black and white. It will be harder to avoid them.