The most enduring battle is between head and heart; what would be efficient and logical is nearly always trumped by what is messy and illogical.

Finding pleasure in revision is the thing I would most strongly advise to people. It's not something I did as a younger writer; I learned it over time.

A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.

I guess the thing I would say most fervently is that your original impulse to write something is an impulse you should trust, and that if it doesn't work on the first draft, which it hardly ever does, the commitment to revising ought to be something you embrace really early. And to revise and revise and revise.

Applying logic to potentially illogical behaviour is to construct a house on shifting foundations. The structure will inevitably collapse.

I grew up with parents who were English professors at Wichita State University, and we were more liberal-minded as a family than most of the people I hung out with in Wichita. During summers, we went off to Telluride, Colorado, where I've returned every summer since I was born.