The islands and the Continent work together through the stages of creation, vying with one another for voice and articulation. Writing is the conscious ordering of unconscious material, with the Continent of Reason applying its logic to the intuitive logic of the islands so that their alternative visions of the world can be expressed in a language

The Managing Editor, who balances analytical consciousness with intuitive vision, is in charge of the revision process. The Managing Editor’s job is to make sure that in the final draft nothing remains that isn’t comprehensible to the Continental audience; and to see that nothing of the islands’ vision remains unexpressed. The Continental audience,

Why are we doing this? Because the pain is the truth at the heart of your story; and this time you can have the pain serve your creative purposes instead of serving the pain as you may have done once. The writer who revisits the demons inside the door will not see them as your demons, but as demons that affected you long ago, affected the you that

Beauty and elevation flash from the currents set up by intense speculation. Beauty is not the aim of the writer. His aim must be truth. But beauty and elevation shine out of him while he is on the quest. His mind is on the problem; and as he unravels it, and displays it, he communicates his own spirit, as it were incidentally, as it were unwittingl

With money you can buy time: time to do the things you want to do, instead of merely doing the things you merely can do. Aim to do what only you can do, and stop doing what you—as well as others—can do. Simply being able to do a thing is not a good reason for doing it if you want to be in control of your own time.

“If you have no anxiety, the risk you face is probably not worthy of you. Only risks you have outgrown don’t frighten you.”

Every time you finish a productive compartment of time, you construct your linkage to the next one. Drawing on the energy that urges you to continue, you say instead: “Okay, I’ve got to stop in ten minutes. Instead of writing for the next ten minutes, I’m going to use that time to decide how I’m going to begin tomorrow.” You’ve made the linkage. Th

Once the late Sinclair Lewis arrived in Harvard, drunk as usual (alcoholism is our main occupational disease), to talk about writing. “Hands up, all those who want to be writers!” he yelled. Everyone’s hand went up. “Then why the hell aren’t you at home writing?” he asked, and staggered off the platform. —John Braine

The principles for time management are similar to those for writing. Program activities in the mind before it’s time to do them, and you’ll discover that doing them becomes easier and infinitely more productive. You can’t imagine yourself addressing a group of four hundred? You have to imagine yourself doing it, or you’ll never be able to do it. Th