Listening is receptivity. The deeper you can listen, the better you can write. You take in the way things are without judgment, and the next day you can write the truth about the way things are.

But until you get your own list, here are some writing ideas: 1. Tell about the quality of light coming in through your window. Jump in and write. Don’t worry if it is night and your curtains are closed or you would rather write about the light up north—just write. Go for ten minutes, fifteen, a half hour. 2. Begin with “I remember.” Write lots of

We learn writing by doing it. That simple. We don’t learn by going outside ourselves to authorities we think know about it.

That’s the great value of art—making the ordinary extraordinary. We awaken ourselves to the life we are living.

Students say to me, “Well, you’re just the teacher. You have to say something positive.” Friends say, “Well, you’re just my friend. You already like me.” Stop! Really stop when someone is complimenting you. Even if it’s painful and you are not used to it, just keep breathing, listen, and let yourself take it in. Feel how good it is. Build up a

We think in sentences, and the way we think is the way we see.

Writers end up writing about their obsessions. Things that haunt them; things they can’t forget; stories they carry in their bodies waiting to be released.

Use loneliness. Its ache creates urgency to reconnect with the world. Take that aching and use it to propel you deeper into your need for expression—to speak, to say who you are and how you care about light and rooms and lullabies.

true. No matter how large a thing is, how fantastic, it is also ordinary. We think of details as daily and mundane. Even miracles are mundane happenings that an awakened mind can see in a fantastic way.