Let the rain sing you a lullaby.
Sentences or solutions occur to me in the shower, or while running on the treadmill, or riding on the subway.
With a little persuasion, any familiar thing can turn abnormal in the mind. Here's a thought experiment. Consider this brutal bit of magic. A human grows a second human in a space inside her belly; she grows a second heart and a second brain, second eyes and second limbs, a complete set of second body parts as if for use as spares, and then, after almost a year, she expels that second screaming being out of her belly and into the world, alive. Bizarre, isn't it?
It took me years to learn that sentences in fiction must do much more than stand around and look pretty.
My goal was just to tell the unlikely story in a way that would feel as convincing as possible.
In general, I think I'm quick to worry about disasters of all kinds.
Fear is. . . a kind of unintentional storytelling that we are all born knowing how to do.
But in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure.
Instead, it just reminded her that sometimes there were no good choices.
The intention that man should be happy is not in the plan of Creation.
I think the men and women serving in Iraq today deserve special recognition for that.