As a writer, my job (as I see it) is to make order from chaos—to bring sense and sequence to the uncomfortable, the disheartening, the indefensible. It is a task I take seriously; words—and the ways in which we use them—can change the world. Indeed they have, many times over. How our words change that world, however, can be for either good or evil, depending on our uses and our intentions. And it is here, at this point where task and consequence meet, that I am always, int

1. Writing for a living turns you into a different kind of writer. All writers are intricately tied to our work. We all view our identities as writers first and people second, but once you are a professional this identity takes on a new, heavier meaning. Slumps and blocks are no longer just frustrating aspects of the writing life, they are harbingers of disaster, notices from the universe that you should never have had the guts to call yourself a writer in the first place. Wh

"Write even when the world is chaotic. You don't need a cigarette, silence, music, a comfortable chair, or inner peace to write. You just need ten minutes and a writing implement." If you look online for writing advice, quotes, or sayings, you will find many like this one. They all say something along the lines of write when and where you can, you don't need anything particular to get started, you don't need things to be perfect. I call b.s. It is true that you can sque

I've spent the past six weeks not writing. As every writer and writer-lover knows, that's a recipe for disaster. And, sometimes, like now, it's a disaster that looms larger and larger without much hope of relief. Kafka once said a non-writing writer is only about five seconds from crazy at any given time. (Well, okay, he said it better, much better, but non-writing me only paraphrases, and that's as close as we're gonna get today.) And, I don't know about you, but I'm not