Sometimes when I prepare to write, I feel the same sensation wash over me as if my toes were curling over the brink of a high cliff, my gaze peering downward into a dark pond, and I anxiously wonder, will the water prove deep enough? Will my words be satisfactory?

Experience is the catalyst for all great stories.

I write so others might contemplate things out of the ordinary. I write to make people feel—to cause laughter and tears, to cause anger at injustice. I write so the world will imagine and wonder at crazy, incredible truths. I write to have a tiny bit of influence on a universal conscience.

What I've learned about writing is that sometimes less is more, while often more is grander. And both are true.

I write because I love it, not because I excel at it.  But because I write, I shall slowly excel at it.

When gossip starts, be deaf.