Dear Writer: Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life

Attention is a form of love.

If I don’t have paper handy, I might type notes into my phone or record myself talking so that I don’t lose the language or the idea.

I’ve found that anything that applies to writing also applies to life. Problem-solving is a creative act. Conversations are creative. Parenting is creative. Falling in love, leaving your job, changing your mind—all creative acts. Creativity isn’t just about making art.

Taking care of yourself is taking care of your creativity. Taking care of yourself as a whole human being is taking care of the writer in you.

Specifics are “sticky.” They’re like little burrs that attach to the reader and hold on. Don’t we all carry images, lines, snippets of dialogue, and bits of description from books we’ve read? Some memorable details have lived in my head for decades, even though the characters’ names, plot points, poem titles, or even authors’ names may have long ag

May the poems keep coming to meet me in the clearing, and may I not scare them back into the woods.

I’ve found it’s best not to be too finicky about the conditions.

Years spent with art are years spent in cocoon after cocoon after cocoon, always emerging changed.

Being sensitive, attuned, observant—these things don’t just improve your writing, they improve your life.