Maximum sentence length: seventeen words. Minimum:one No semicolons. Semicolons indicate relationships that only idiots need defined by punctuation. Besides, they are ugly. Make sure each sentence is at least four words longer or shorter than the one before it.

A good creative-writing teacher can save a good writer a lot of time.

Don't write love poems when you're in love. Write them when you're not in love.

Don't write with a pen. Ink tends to give the impression the words shouldn't be changed.

...an imagined town is at least as real as an actual town. If it isn't, you may be in the wrong business. Our words come from obsessions we must submit to, whatever the social cost. It can be hard. It can be worse forty years from now if you feel you could have done it and didn't. It is narcissistic, vain, egotistical, unrealistic, selfish, and hateful to assume emotional ownership of a town or a word. It is also essential.

Scholars look for final truths they will never find. Creative writers concern themselves with possibilities that are always there to the receptive.

If you want to communicate, use the telephone