“I want to be able to reach and feel what we all go through as human beings.” ~ Elvis Presley

I meant to publish this early:

-Your experience is worth writing about. Someone can learn from it.

-A note pad is a good place to work out your thoughts.

-The best writing is deeply personal.

-Edit it, improve it, but don’t condemn it.

-If you’re not sure if something you wrote is true or belongs, just delete it. If it’s true, it will come back to you later.

-Almost everything is worth publishing, as long as it’s not meant to incite hatred, violence, greed, depravity, etc. Self-expression is important. And ideas are vital.

-Censoring yourself makes sense, because the things you say affect other people. But your rough draft isn’t the place for censorship. You can edit that stuff out later.

-It’s hard to be a writer if you care about what everyone is going to think. You should have some sensitivity to how you’re writing might affect other people, but don’t let that sensitivity paralyze you or cause you to water down your words.

-Clear thinking produces clear writing. Clear writing produces clearer thinking for those who read it.

-Resist the urge to write about the latest news media narrative. The narrative is almost certainly incomplete and probably a little misleading. By addressing it directly, you’re feeding it. If you insist on writing about it, try to do it indirectly. Do it without naming it. And keep the big picture in mind.

-Let today’s work be enough for you. You’ll have more to write tomorrow.

-Your writing isn’t going to change many lives. You’ll mostly be preaching to the choir. Actually, you’ll mostly be ignored. But you might help a few people.

-They say the life of a writer is a lonely one. But not necessarily, because you have more time to ask yourself the questions you want to ask yourself.

-Writing is like mining. Keep digging.

-If you can share even one good thought with the world everyday, you’ve shared a lot in a lifetime.

-A unique perspective is a gift to a writer.

-Fiction offers an opportunity to express yourself in a way that non-fiction doesn’t. Some thoughts are too personal to be expressed outright. Through fiction, you can hide behind characters. You can make the characters represent different aspects of yourself or other people you’ve met. No one needs to know the difference, unless you want them to.

-Stories are more powerful than dry facts.

-Don’t use your writing as an opportunity to brag.

-Leave a record of your best thoughts.

-My blog is my best advice to myself.

-My blog represents the best of who I am—my best thoughts. If my best thoughts aren’t good enough to keep readers engaged, so be it.

-Much of my writing is a challenge to myself. A challenge to be a better person.

-I don’t like to write about myself, but it’s therapeutic and someone else might get something out of it.

-If I write it, that doesn’t mean it’s true. But it does mean I contemplated it—I at least asked myself if it’s true.

-I write what’s true and I sometimes write what I wish were true.

-If readers think I’m wrong a lot, they’re right. But hopefully I’m doing a little better than average.

-My writing has evolved, because I have evolved. Evolving, intellectually, means being less wrong.

-I don’t have a complete philosophy of life. What I have are little insights here and there that I tend to write down and share with whoever wants to read them. I’m not able to give anyone a complete theory of the meaning of life or how every person should live.

-I tend to write in one and two-line sentences, because I tend to think in one and two-line sentences. Some people can ramble on non-stop, but my mind produces only a bit at a time. There are rare occasions when I’m long-winded.