While I had cancer, I wrote these twenty-two personal essays about how I lived my life backed by Zen and writing.

I write because I am alone and move through the world alone. No one will know what has passed through me... I write because there are stories that people have forgotten to tell, because I am a woman trying to stand up in my life... I write out of hurt and how to make hurt okay; how to make myself strong and come home, and it may be the only real home I'll ever have.

Because I've been doing my practice for so long, I knew what to do even under really hard circumstances.

You live and then you die, I thought. It's good to have some good times.

Writing can teach us the dignity of speaking the truth.

This is the practice school of writing. Like running, the more you do it, the better you get at it. Some days you don't want to run and you resist every step of the three miles, but you do it anyway. You practice whether you want to or not. You don't wait around for inspiration and a deep desire to run ... That's how writing is too ... One of the main aims in writing practice is to learn to trust your own mind and body; to grow patient and nonaggressive.

When you are not writing, you are a writer too. It doesn't leave you.