Start writing by thinking, not wrestling with words.

Your language indicates──and limits──what you think.

If you'd blush saying something in person, don't write it.

You don't write about the horrors of war. No. You write about a kid's burnt socks lying in the road.

I write because I can't imagine not writing.

If I can tell you the story from beginning to end in five minutes, I'm ready to start writing. Then it's a constant spreading out of that five minutes.