Start Telling The Stories That Only You

Writing, And Especially Writing A Novel, Where You Get To Sit In A Room By Yourself With Either A Pen And A Paper Or A Computer For A Couple Of Years, Is A Very Solitary Occupation. You Can Read Sales Figures - A Hundred Thousand Books Sold, Half A Million Books Sold - But They Are Just Numbers.

There's Nothing For Getting You Good Fast Like Having To Be Good Fast, If That Makes Any Sense.

Lives Are Snowflakes - Unique In Detail, Forming Patterns We Have Seen Before, But As Like One Another As Peas In A Pod (and Have You Ever Looked At Peas In A Pod? I Mean, Really Looked At Them? There's Not A Chance You'd Mistake One For Another, After A Minute's Close Inspection.)

Loyalty Was A Great Thing, But No Lieutenants Should Be Forced To Choose Between Their Leader And A Circus With Elephants.

Short Stories Are Tiny Windows Into Other Worlds And Other Minds And Other Dreams