Never look directly at the sun. Instead, look at the sunflower.

Creativity is not so much a boundless well, but an all-you-can-eat buffet of elements for your creative endeavor. Eventually you've eaten your fill, and it's time to digest and then make something. But at some point, it will be time to return to the restaurant.

Once upon a time there were two countries, at war with each other. In order to make peace after many years of conflict, they decided to build a bridge across the ocean. But because they never learned each other’s language properly, they could never agree on the details, so the two halves of the bridge they started to build never met. To this day the bridge extends far into the ocean from both sides, and simply ends half way, miles in the wrong direction from the meeting point. And the two countries are still at war.

Here is where I like to burst in as a writer, to take one strong sensory detail or image and instead of enhancing it or directing attention to it by shouting about it, I simply take it away.

Love is made up of three unconditional properties in equal measure: 1. Acceptance 2. Understanding 3. Appreciation Remove any one of the three and the triangle falls apart. Which, by the way, is something highly inadvisable. Think about it — do you really want to live in a world of only two dimensions? So, for the love of a triangle, please keep love whole.

Use this day to do something daring, extraordinary and unlike yourself. Take a chance and shape a different pattern in your personal cloud of probability!

Whenever you go on a trip to visit foreign lands or distant places, remember that they are all someone's home and backyard.