To write the present is to believe in the future.

The ritualistic turning away from the written word too often begins in the classroom.

People constantly make the mistake of thinking that their words on the page should be the equivalent of dress-up clothes. Completely different from everyday. A little stiff, a little remote, proper, mannered, a world away from the T-shirt of ordinary talk.

Writing can excavate the heart, lay it bare. Even if its only reader is the person who wrote it in the first place, it can promote understanding, not only of others but of our deepest selves.

Writing is undoubtedly interaction with another human being, even if that human being is only yourself.

Audience is, after all, one of the great barriers to writing, those outsiders who will peek in and sadly shake their heads: oh, no, not good enough. Even after all this time I still fear that judgment.

“We’re not just talking about writing,” says Eidman-Aadahl. “It’s about someone caring what you’re talking about, someone telling you you have something to say that’s worth hearing.”

E. L. Doctorow once famously said of writing a novel, “It’s like driving a car at night: you never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

I have some fellow writer friends who love to revise. It is in the rewriting, they like to say, that the true shape of their work emerges. It is the most rewarding, even pleasurable part of the process. I learned long ago when they said this to arrange my face, because it did not seem useful to let them see my thoughts writ large there, which were