If you don’t have the time to do something right, where are you going to find the time to fix it?

When creative people do their best work, they're hardly ever in charge, they're just sort of rolling along with their eyes shut yelling wheee.

Hemingway sucks. If I set out to write that way, it would have been been hollow and lifeless because it wasn't me.

But then fall comes, kicking summer out on its treacherous ass as it always does one day sometime after the midpoint of September, it stays awhile like an old friend that you have missed. It settles in the way an old friend will settle into your favorite chair and take out his pipe and light it and then fill the afternoon with stories of places he has been and things he has done since last he saw you.

I don't ask myself, "Well, does God exist or does God not exist?" I choose to believe that God exists, and therefore I can say, "God, I can't do this by myself. Help me not to take a drink today. Help me not to take a drug today." And that works fine for me.

With six weeks' worth of recuperation time, you'll also be able to see any glaring holes in the plot or character development. And listen--if you spot a few of these big holes, you are forbidden to feel depressed about them or to beat up on yourself. Screw-ups happen to the best of us.

What I'd show you is much more bizarre than anything we have looked at so far, and I warn you in advance that the first impulse will be to laugh. That's all right. Laugh if you must. Just don't take your eye off what you see, for even in your imagination, here is a creature who can do you damage.