Life is a continuous exercise in creative problem solving.
You don't learn to write by going through a series of preset writing exercises. You learn to write by grappling with a real subject that truly matters to you.
When students write from experience, they can breathe those specifics into their writing- dialect, odd smells, precise names of plants- that can animate even the most tired and tedious text.
It's misleading to think of writers as special creatures, word sorcerers who possess some sort of magical knowledge hidden from everyone else. Writers are ordinary people who like to write. They feel the urge to write, and they scratch that itch every chance they get.
Here's the secret of writing: there is no secret.
When someone you love dies, you get a big bowl of sadness put down in front of you, steaming hot. You can start eating now, or you can let it cool and eat it bit by bit later one. Either way, you end up eating the whole thing. There's really no way around it.
G. K. Chesterton once said: If something is worth doing, it is worth doing badly. I live by this philosophy when I teach writing. It seems to me vastly more important that a student try a new technique in her writing, and use it imperfectly, than never try the technique at all.
All dramatic realism is somewhat sadistic; an audience is persuaded to watch something that makes it uncomfortable and from which no relief is offered - no laughter, no tears, no purgation.
Only by understanding the wisdom of natural foods and their effects on the body, shall we attain mastery of disease and pain, which shall enable us to relieve the burden of mankind.
I'm still working out my opinions - it's always a question mark. I leave loads of space open, and people don't like that.
I know the devil is working against me. I already know my mission and what I'm really here to do. People may not see it but he's been working overtime. He's not even able to mess with other artists because he's got so many demons around me.