Only Lies Offend Me, Never Honest Counsel.

Much As I Admire Tolkien, I Once Again Always Felt Like Gandalf Should Have Stayed Dead. That Was Such An Incredible Sequence In Fellowship Of The Ring When He Faces The Balrog On The Khazad-dûm And He Falls Into The Gulf, And His Last Words Are, "fly, You Fools." What Power That Had, How That Grabbed Me. And Then He Comes Back As Gandalf The White, And If Anything He's Sort Of Improved. I Never Liked Gandalf The White As Much As Gandalf The Grey, And I Never Liked Him Coming Back. I Think It Would Have Been An Even Stronger Story If Tolkien Had Left Him Dead.

Shattered Legs May Heal In Time, But Some Betrayals Fester And Poison The Soul.

A Lot Of Writing Takes Place In The Subconscious, And It's Bound To Have An Effect.

You Don't Just Have People Who Wake Up In The Morning And Say, "what Evil Things Can I Do Today, Because I'm Mr. Evil?" People Do Things For What They Think Are Justified Reasons. Everybody Is The Hero Of Their Own Story, And You Have To Keep That In Mind. If You Read A Lot Of History, As I Do, Even The Worst And Most Monstrous People Thought They Were The Good Guys. We're All Very Tangled Knots.

I Believe That A Writer Learns From Every Story He Writes, And When You Try Different Things, You Learn Different Lessons. Working With Other Writers, As In Hollywood Or In A Shared World Series, Will Also Strengthen Your Skills, By Exposing You To New Ways Of Seeing The Work, And Different Approaches To Certain Creative Challenges.