A creative writing class may be one of the last places you can go where your life still matters.

A creative writing class may be one of the last places you can go where your life still matters.

...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.

Never write a poem about anything that ought to have a poem written about it.

You are someone and you have a right to your life.

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

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