NEW YEAR, NEW PROMPT

Silhouettes and shadows, from Henki Lee

More and more I value the elegant contribution and girl and her dog can add to a photo. When there is a person, there is a protagonist, and you can send her off into adventure. This picture is ripe with looming possibilities. Can you see any?

INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR LORENE STUNSON HILL

Haunted Hotel, England

What inspires you? 

Boredom inspires me. It began in High School, I use to get bored during Summer Recess from School. To pass time, I hand wrote a novel each summer. But, lacking confidence, I threw each one away as soon as School started again. 

Secondly, searching for a sense of accomplishment is my biggest inspiration. Unfortunately, I tend to write better when I’m down and I write to bring myself up. For example, in 2007, emerging from homelessness, I lived in an old historic relic of a hotel that was known to be haunted. Many of its residents were “put” there by Social Services or on drugs. Residents paid by the week so, for many it was a revolving door. I stayed locked up in my apartment raising my one year old Grandson, whose Mom abandoned him. Writing my recently released novel, 'To Dance with Ugly People,' was my escape and it made my life rich and rewarding. I felt in touch with a higher power while writing this book, which was my third inspiration. 

I’d pray for where to go next, having reached writer’s block, and I promise you the answer would pop into my head during the night. This novel brought me to a new divine awareness. I realized I had experienced a lot in life that had left me strewn and unsettled; the book brought about the resurgence of a strong feeling of cohesion, for me. I could feel my heart glow with excitement and enthusiasm as I wrote this book. 

Who inspires me? 

I have loved the written word my whole life. I have attended lectures and readings by Maya Angelou, Nikki Giovanni, and Sonia Sanchez. I’d shed tears of admiration sitting in the Audience. Ntozake Shange, Alice Walker, Terry McMillan and Alice Walker are among others I have admired.

What are you passionate about doing? 

I am passionate about writing. I keep a notebook and pen in my purse, in every room and on the table beside my bed. I’ve started my second book. It is a sequel to, “To Dance with Ugly People,” titled “Ugly People Can’t Dance.” I am also passionate about dollhouses. I build them from kits. I shop on Ebay for miniature furniture, I paint the rooms with paint sample from Walmart. I make tiny curtains, shingle the roofs, place shutters, lay carpet, you name it. Once finished I give them away to a needy little girl.

How do you express your interests? 

In the middle of the night when the house is quiet and everyone asleep, I write. Sometimes I go to bed with a question on my mind, and the answer pops into my head. I jump up and write it down. I am retired, so I am able to take cat naps during the day. When I am working on my dollhouses, I think about the story I am writing.

How do you stay inspired? 

Listening for little sayings people use. For instance, I met an older lady who would say, “Don’t Dance with Ugly People!” every time we parted. That memory was my inspiration for my book title, “To Dance with Ugly People.” 

I am a people watcher. I am very quiet in a room full of people because I am listening so hard. Even a trip to the grocery store, has me nosily listening to every conversation I can. Phrases, Hints, Character names, Ideas (if it hits my ear right) gives me something I may be able to use. Day to day I am writing down my favorite things I have heard and I put in an hour a day, at least, writing. My son calls my writing a crossword puzzle. He is right. I might be writing something that is used in Chapter 10 today and haven't completed 1 through 9. I eventualy move everything around, put in some fill in and have a completed novel. I can't explain it any other way. 


The interview series comes from talking with creative types who want to share what what they do, what their interests are, and what inspires them, in the hopes of inspiring creative energy in others. If you have something to say that is if interest to others, feel free to submit.

45 WAYS TO AVOID USING THE WORD "VERY"

Via Writer's Write

GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ: THE PROCESS

During an informal survey in one of my English classes, the professor moved down a line of students, asking each person the same question: What is your favorite book? 

The answers that came, with few exceptions, were identical: One Hundred Years of Solitude.

So, when I read Marquez's obituary in the Economist, detailing how that book came into being, I thought I would share:

"In July 1965 Garbriel Garcia Marquez - Gabo to all who revered him later - decided to lock himself away in a house on Calle de La Loma in Mexico City. He ordered his wife to sell the car and get credit from the butcher. For 15 months, using only his index fingers, he typed for six hours a day in a room he called "The Cave of the Mafia." He survived on a diet of good Scotch and constant cigarettes. At five in the afternoon he would emerge in to the fading light with his eyes wide, as though he had discoursed with the dead... 

"'One Hundred Years of Solitude,' the fruit of his self-imprisonment, sold 50m copies in more than 30 languages... 

"Writing was difficult; the words came as painfully as kidney stones. Nonetheless, there was nothing else he had wanted to do in life. He burned 'to write so I would not die.'"

REJECTION LETTERS SENT TO FAMOUS PEOPLE

Via

I have a copy of Lolita - a solid honest to goodness paper copy, not an eBook. I bought it new, so I can have it hanging around, because I love it. I'm not just saying that in the way that some people say they love James Joyce's Ulysses, so I can say I love a complicated monster of a book. I'm not saying it's my favorite - the way some people have a favorite animal. I'm not saying it's the best book of all time, a life-changing experience (so is going to prison), or some other sweeping statement. It's more a combination of elements (language, content, author choices, style) that come together to give you everything you've ever wanted. Completely subjective.

To name one thing: I like Nabokov's sense of humor. It's there in the words, the feel of someone having a lot of fun. Have you ever hung around people when they love what they do? It's bliss. 

Coming to the point - it blows my mind a little to know someone rejected this. I would love to have had a hand in publishing Lolita. The closest I hope to come to greatness is probably reflected greatness - standing next to someone great, and hoping it rubs off. Sad, I know. This publisher had a chance to be associated with Lolita...and declined. A little mind blowing. 

Another sad story: here's U2's rejection letter. You can find more letters here.

WRITING PICTURE PROMPT NO. 3

On a sunny day, you've been ringing the doorbell to your friend's apartment for a good ten minutes. There's been no answer. Turning to leave, you notice a white car parked perpendicularly across the way. What catches your eye is the pattern of water against the door, it moves with the breeze. But there has been no rain. As you look at the door, a shape emerges. You move in closer, to inspect. What do you find?

MENTAL OBSTACLES

There is a mental audience inside every writer, every artist, every person that creates. This is something that I believe exists, like a literary Santa Claus. I think it's a part of human nature to create an audience, and this…is a problem.

Ever pandered to an audience? It's reflexive. They like something, you give them more. They don't like it, you stop. Cause and effect. Here's what my mental audience is like: it fluctuates a lot - sometimes it's people I know, sometimes members of my family, sometimes it's co-workers, and sometimes it's just a mass of faceless strangers, but the quality they have in common, is that they are complete @$$holes. If you've read Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, I believe she referred to a radio station running through her head called K-F*cked. You see where I'm going with this?

The easiest way to keep writing, to keep going, is to clear the audience out. That's why I emphasize simplicity. That's what I got from the Dalai Lama talk.* So you don't write while considering what other people will think, you choose your one goal (singular), and move towards it. You screen everything else out. I like the quote above: your goal is to create beauty, and no one else matters. The clearer the mind, the easier the goal is to reach. 

* The Dalai Lama post on Happiness, where he distilled happiness into really simple ideas: focusing on others, being part of a community. And you're done. If you meet him, he's one happy guy. 

WHAT'S YOUR CHARACTER TYPE?

I have a friend, a good friend, who I consider mainstream in her tastes. She only watches romantic comedies and reads chicklit or romance novels, a lot of them by Danielle Steel.  She can deviate from her preferences - we've had deep discussions about Game of Thrones, which is not a romance by any stretch of the imagination - and she can discuss football like a man. However, she knows what she likes and isn't tempted by anything else. This is how I have traditionally perceived the notion of having a book "type." But, what if this is too simple?

I've been thinking about "types" a lot recently, starting from this post, where I rambled about how following the main character was ruining the experience of the book for me. There was nothing wrong with the book itself, but the crucial choice of main character didn't work for me. I didn't like him. What I have come to realize is that one of the most useless bits of feedback you can receive is "I didn't like it," with no explanation. So I decided to delve.  

According to my own diagnosis, I don't discriminate across genres: sci-fi (don't gravitate towards it, but won't turn it away if it looks good); mystery (great sense of plot); romance (emotionally engaging and complex; funny); books about family (a look into someone else's life you would otherwise not get); etc. However, if you've been around the literary block a few times, there are certain types characters who, if sketched broadly enough, will be familiar to you. You've seen this type before, and when you encounter them again, you get a sense of déjà vu. 

In a book I read recently, I recognized a type of character, let's call him the "T" type, as someone I had read before, over the course of a number of other novels. My reaction to T was visceral: I couldn't stand him. It was borderline irrational. When I see T again, I hate him even more. Why? 

Here is my definition of the T type character: a spectator in his own life, he reacts rather than takes action, he is constantly victimized, his defining feature is that he is sensitive and/or delicate, the plot progresses as a series of personal tragedies, and most importantly, he does not grow or change, he simply survives. This, in general, is the story of T. 

To be really specific, here is why I don't like the T type narrator: he suffers constantly, and to be around him means that you get to suffer too. Suffering isn't bad, it's an opportunity to grow, develop, and overcome, and then the journey of the novel is worth it. For a good example of this, see Life After Life. However, and this is key, T does not grow, does not overcome. Things happen. T stays the same, all the way to the end, and I beside him, suffer. T lets people take advantage of him. I feel miserable. Then he does it again. 

Through the haze of misery that being with T created, it occurred to me that while I don't have a specific type of literary genre that I prefer, I have a character type, or an anti-type that I avoid like the plague, because it guarantees a miserable experience. Sometimes, people like knowing that the focus of the story is a romance, or a mystery, but for the General Fiction category, the stories that do not fall effortlessly into categories, it might be a specific character type that holds or destroys your interest. This is my working theory. 

What are some other character types? I'm going to throw out a few generalizations: the flighty female, the methodical scientist, the bland everyman or everywoman or girl-next-door.* I could go on. When looking at your audience, the pattern into their heart may not necessarily be by approaching through specific genres, but by specific Character Types. You can be known not for your Thrillers, but for your character type, a type you vary a little bit each time, across genres, across countries, across space and time. But the character remains true.

*Not to be confused with the Playboy Playmate reality show. 

WRITING UPDATE: REVIEWS

This is going to be a bit of a ramble. Don't say you weren't warned!

Thanks to my new vow to stop multi-tasking, I had to to wait until I finished a book that was really pissing me off, before starting this post. I'm not going to tell you the title. I will never name books I don't like. Someone put a lot of work and a lot of soul into that book, and I can't bring myself to demean something so precious to another person.

So let me talk about this in the abstract: I wanted to stop reading this book altogether at some point (at many points). The main character really pissed me off. He was one of those types that I hate - a character that is a spectator in their own lives, where all they do is react to situations, and where every other character introduced is so much more interesting, and yet someone we don't get to follow. No, we're left with this guy, who can't stand up for himself, who isn't articulate, who is a constant victim in a world where bad things just keep happening, and in response he never seems to learn or improve. He's not attractive or intelligent or special in any way, and he doesn't become any of these things either. He's just a sponge - absorbing and feeling bad and then expounding on the life lessons he has learned as a sponge. The longer the amount of time I spent with this person - the more I started to actively hate him. I felt like spending time with him was wasting hours of my life, and maybe so.

However, every time I wanted to stop - I thought about the reviewers that I sent my book out to, and I kept going. I've tried to put a constructive spin on reviews, with this post, and here's a follow up. I've sent the draft out to a good number of people - a sample. There were two reviewers in particular who I had been really looking forward to hearing from, because they were published authors; they had that aura of legitimacy: they had been published in the traditional way. They were represented by agents and a real publisher had published their books. This would be some great feedback! So I waited for their responses in happy anticipation. Then I just kept on waiting. 

One of the authors could not finish the book at all. My book isn't that long, just to be clear. But she just could not finish it. As I was reading the book which will not be named, I kept thinking - was this what it was like for her? What I've heard back from the reviewer is that this book is not her "type." (I'm assuming she's being honest here, and there's no reason to think she would lie.) Anything that falls outside this "type," she cannot bring herself to read, not even for a friend. What I take from this is that people have a natural range of books they will read: they have a "type." People like blonds and Thai food, and anything else is ugly and tastes like dogfood. Human nature is what it is. I, on the other hand, am a book whore. I'll read anything, as long as something about it piques my interest, so this was good to know. 

The other reviewer? She's a genius. Literally, a genius. She could probably put away an encyclopedia a day. So no sweat, right? Could probably jot down a few useful notes and be done with it. I never heard back from her again. I don't understand why people say they're going to do something - and then don't do it. Human nature is a funny thing. I'm going to keep shuffling along. Writing is a process, and there are a lot of obstacles along the way - I just have to keep moving forward. As long as I keep moving, I will eventually get to where I want to be.

JUST GO AHEAD AND DO IT

“In life, you will become known for doing what you do. That sounds obvious, but it’s profound. If you want to be known as someone who does a particular thing, then you must start doing that thing immediately. Don’t wait. There is no other way. It probably won’t make you money at first, but do it anyway. Work nights. Work weekends. Sleep less. Whatever you have to do. If you’re lucky enough to know what brings you bliss, then do that thing at once. If you do it well, and for long enough, the world will find ways to repay you.” 

From Navating Stuckness, by Jonathan Harris

This is one of the parting quotes from a very strong article about one man's roundabout way of coming back to doing what he loves. It's one of those stories to tuck away somewhere, so you can find and reread it when you're feeling like you've lost your way. I'm going to go write now.

WRITING PICTURE PROMPT NO. 2

You are walking along a dirt path, following the long line of a man. He trails in front of you. He cannot see you. You weave along the shadows of trees until the path opens into a clearing. What now?

WHY YOU MIGHT WANT TO MAKE AN AUDIOBOOK

So...I waited until I was reading something blatantly intelligent before before completing this post. There you have it. Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook, one of the most emotionally taxing, mentally overwhelming, lives-up-to-its-own-legend books I have subjected myself to. Have you ever read a book and thought - "hell, I could've written that." Well, that won't happen here.

That aside, I "read" this on audiobook. Cheating? I don't know. I used to know - I used to have all the answers, but now...I don't know. I've had some truly moving experiences via audiobook, of the same kind that reading a good book will do. That, I have discovered, is not a bad thing. Because the point of a book is to create an experience, and having it read to you, while easier (there is less focus, less concentration involved) will create an authentic experience. It may not be the exact same as hearing that perfect voice in your head, but that doesn't make it any less. 

I started this practice, like most things, under duress. Sometimes the library will have an e-copy, sometimes a physical copy, and sometimes an audio copy, but never all of them and never at the same time. Alas. So to continually feed my appetite for that particular novel, I had to compromise, and considering the state of my morals, it wouldn't be the first time. 

After compromising myself several times over while listening to books in this inferior format, I began to notice a few things:

The voice is everything. If you do not have a good reader, it will bring a good book to its knees; the experience of a book becomes irrevocably tied to this single voice. In the best case scenario, you will have a full professional cast of actors reading each individual character with symphonic interludes (See: The Golden Compass).* In the worst case, you will be subjected to hours in the company of that nasal twat-sicle that sat behind you in History 1B. Between these two extremes, you simply need to be able to read both genders without sounding whiny and high-pitched (men reading as women) or just plain weird (women reading as men). I have noticed that reading, not acting out characters, may also make the listening experience less offensive while enhancing the listener's enjoyment of the language of the book.

Audiobooks may be better or worse for certain genres. Poetry could really benefit from being heard - you can replay them over and over again like songs, until the rhythm of the words really sinks into your head. On the other hand, I'm not sure if I would want to have certain types of books read to me. I suggest you google Gilbert Gottfried and 50 Shades to see what I mean by this.  

Now, here is the crucial question - why would you want to make an audiobook? In my own experience, when I've asked people if they want to take a look at a draft of my book, the answer is almost universally the same - they would love to, but they have no time. This "I have no time" is the most popular rationale that well-meaning people have for not reading anymore. Or for only reading the news, it amounts to the same thing. The book is a monopolizer. You have a carve out a chunk of time to truly experience a novel in the traditional way, and I don't think people will give that kind of time to just anyone. This is where audiobooks come in. 

The experience of an audiobook is different than a book, because suddenly - Look! Free hands! Your hands are not tied to a book! And this allows those same hands to do a variety of other things, like wash the dishes, or drive a car, or surf the internet. Yes, the experience of reading this precious book that it took forever to bleed out from the ashes of your heart is being split between a crying baby and road rage. I try not to think about that part. I try to focus on the other part: this may be how you will reach a broader, busier audience, who would otherwise not grant you their time. It's a tactical maneuver. It's your way in. Let me put this another way, if I could pack the experience of my book into a syringe and inject it into the bloodstream of a reader, I would do it. 

This is all still theoretical on my end, though. I've never tried it - I'm still in the editing phase. But I can provide links to two posts that provide practical advice on how to do this Here and Here.

* The Book Thief by Markus Zusak was also a very good, straightforward listening experience, if you want another example. I could provide negative examples, but that's just being mean. 

A LITTLE HIKING, A LITTLE VOCAB

There is something eloquent about a broken tree. It looks almost human, bent over and hunched, with all its branches stripped away.

I went traipsing up Mount Diablo recently, before it became completely unbearable and you risked windburn rather than sunburn. The good weather has gone away, and it is now goodbye nature and hello gym treadmill, with all its sweaty friends. Disgusting.

For the time that remains, I have scuttled together some pics taken from up high, after dragging myself up rough terrain and down loose gravel (it's named Mount Diablo for very good reason). The sky was feeling accommodating that day, and it was sunny the entire time. I should have brought a bigger hat.

There were two hang gliders out. First the one, and then a second joined the first. I watched as the second made his way on over to the first and then sort of hovered around the person. It must be faintly irritating, if you're out hang gliding and this other guy's hang gliding, and even though you both have the entire sky at your disposal, this other person has to glide next to you and steal your wind. 

Then I thought about it. Maybe this was aerial vocabulary at play? If you want to speak to someone in the sky, mayn't it be a tad difficult to make them hear you? Maybe you can only touch wings? Maybe you throw your shadow over the other person, and that's how gliders say hello.

For every activity, there's usually a new set of vocabulary that you have to learn. It's part of the reason why I like poking my nose into unfamiliar territory and sitting on buses. In rock climbing, if you climb a route for the first time and nail it, you flashed it. You can google the phrase "cashed" and see what you come up with. Over the weekend, I stupidly bricked my phone. So, I wonder if there was some glider speak going on in the sky?

THE THING IS, BY ELLEN BASS

to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you've held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.

- Ellen Bass 

 

REJECTION WITH BOUNCE

I love my rejection slips.  They show me I try.

- Sylvia Plath

Long story short, I sent out a draft of my book* to a friend for a review, and the review came back that she had stopped reading at about 70 pages because she just couldn't get into it, and that if you haven't hooked the reader by 70 pages, then you never will because they will stop reading. 

So, the first reaction was feeling that this was a personal stab to the heart; it's like she told me my child looked like a gnome. I don't think that part is avoidable. It was a first draft, and I don't think anyone's first draft comes out anywhere near perfect. I read that part of her email again, and...nope it was still a stab to the heart. 

Then, I did what I did when I was back in college. I used to bounce back quickly back then. I remembered that I really enjoyed self-identifying as a problem-solver. For some reason, rejection never seemed to be a surprise then, it used to be something that just happened, and something that you turned into a problem to be solved. It's an old skill that I used to do instinctively, and that I'd like to learn again. 

I'm going to try to break the 70 pages of unreadability into manageable parts. What exactly worked or didn't? I think her assessment was useful and timely - I'm at a place where I can do something about it, but I would like something more concrete than that she couldn't get through it. I have some guesses on what went wrong, and if I think on it a bit, I can come up with some solutions. So life goes on. 

*Co-book. I've co-written a book, but to lessen confusion, I will use "my."

MELLOW WRITING MUSIC: ALL MANKIND

Simple Desire, by All Mankind. Nice and chill.

WRITING PICTURE PROMPT NO. 1

I've never given a prompt before, and I've never even taken anyone up on one, they've always felt weird, but in the spirit of creative innovation, I will from time to time give out a picture prompt.  If you look up, I have provided a visual location for an event to take place. The streets are empty. It's a sunny day, and the point of focus is the house with the archway of flowers over the door.

To test this out, I will respond to my own prompt. Here goes:

She moved forward with an economy of movement, with minimal swinging of arms, or jutting of elbows. She walked the way a turtle swims, with inborn naturalness and casual elan.  She walked until she stopped, quickly and abruptly, in the precise center of the block, a movement that while sudden, was also completed smoothly and with consent.  Looking out in front of her, she arced her eyes over the entire length of the street. There were no cars, no other people. Instead, there was a pervading sense of waiting, for someone who had missed his mark, who should have been here. Waiting for her.

From the corner of her eye, she could see a flood of crimson blossoms arching over a doorway. They waved at her like hands, fluttering in the wind. Above the door, reflecting the sun, was the closed glass of a window. Behind the glass, she was sure, someone was watching. Attractive women could always tell when they were being watched. Over time, they learned their better angles. She knew that when she tilted her head back to turn, the sunlight would split across her face, haloing her features. He should have come out then; he should have already been there. The door was only steps away from where she stood. But the door remained closed. No one came out to greet her.

Of course, there were options. She could knock on the door. She could be polite or persuasive, but that went against one of her key guiding principles: never to reward cowardice. She waited a beat longer, and when the door remained closed, she adjusted her handbag over her shoulder and walked on.

Self-critique: This was self-indulgent and possibly made no sense. It's a jumble of images and descriptions with very little editing. I consider this part of a creative burst (or diarrhea or explosion) that I think is necessary to the act of creating. You have to give yourself the freedom to look bad.

This excerpt is also what I would consider a layer. French actress Juliette Binoche once described good acting as being like an onion - there are many layers to a performance. In that same sense, this scene is one layer in a larger piece that I've been constructing inside my head recently, and I will lay another perspective on top of it later, and then I will keep going, layering away until I have something substantial.

THE WRITER STEREOTYPE

Via

I happened to be beside a friend the other day as she finished a book.  She turned to the end where the picture of the author happened to be, looked it over, and said "I knew it."

What did she know?

I'm not going to answer this question immediately. Not to be coy, but I want to give the idea some time to percolate. If I jump in with my theory too soon, this becomes a leading question*, and I'd rather the answer evolved naturally.  

I tell people on occasion that I like to write. The act of writing is an act of joy. I always thought that this was a neutral fact, like saying you liked your eggs scrambled, your sky blue, and your favorite season to be preferably spring. It recently occurred to me, possibly in aftermath of the "I knew it"fiasco, that this identification could be negative.

There are two perceptions that I see running in parallel: that of the writer, and that of the introvert. This comes from reading Quiet by Susan Cain, which covers the gamut of what it means to be an introvert in the modern world. In part, she argues that introverted behavior is considered negative, while extroversion has become the ideal. People asked to described the generic introverts use descriptors such as "ungainly," "neutral colors," and "skin problems." In contrast, the extrovert ideal is "gregarious, alpha, and comfortable in the spotlight...prefers action to contemplation, risk-taking to heed-taking, certainty to doubt." So the idea of someone typing away in a cafe, happily translating the ideas living inside their head onto the page probably falls under the definition of an introvert. That is my assumption.

There are exceptions. I'm sure there are writers out there who have mastered the trifecta of socializing, binge drinking, and writing. This person clearly has it made and has nothing to fear. I can't speak to that person.

However, when I thought of a hypothetical writer, I used to picture a deep and intense thinker, someone who lived a little ways outside of social norms, who observed and created, someone I could admire. That picture may be changing. When the phrase "I'm a writer" comes out of my mouth, it can act like a filter, and I wonder how the perception of me alters when that filter has been applied.

Of course, none of this means I'm going to act any differently. Life is difficult enough as it is.

* A leading question attempts to influence an answer.  For example: What color is the grey dog?

Yes, this post has been re-written. 

MELLOW WRITING MUSIC: RHYE

Two songs that are mellow and just slightly captivating, a nice bit of sound to have in the background while you're typing furiously away. The videos are also tell an interesting story of disconnect.

ON EMOTIONAL EXCESS AND CREATIVITY

You must not fear, hold back, count or be a miser with your thoughts and feelings. It is also true that creation comes from an overflow, so you have to learn to intake, to imbibe, to nourish yourself and not be afraid of fullness. The fullness is like a tidal wave which then carries you, sweeps you into experience and into writing. Permit yourself to flow and overflow, allow for the rise in temperature, all the expansions and intensifications. Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terrors, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them. If it seems to you that I move in a world of certitudes, you, par contre, must benefit from the great privilege of youth, which is that you move in a world of mysteries. But both must be ruled by faith.

From the Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. 3