Awakening self-compassion is often the greatest challenge people face on the spiritual path.
I never change, I simply become more myself.
Novels usually evolve out of 'character. ' Characters generate stories, and the shape of a novel is entirely imagined but should have an aesthetic coherence.
Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul.
How lovely this world is, really: one simply has to look.
Read widely, and without apology. Read what you want to read, not what someone tells you you should read.
And this is the forbidden truth, the unspeakable taboo - that evil is not always repellent but frequently attractive; that it has the power to make of us not simply victims, as nature and accident do, but active accomplices.
The shameless Chloe placed on the tombs of her seven husbands the inscription, "The work of Chloe. " How could she have expressed herself more plainly?
Right now-whether you're in writing courses getting "paid" in credit for writing, or burdened and distracted by earning a living and changing diapers-figure out how to make writing an integral part of your life. Publication is good, and gives you the courage to go on, but publication is not as important as the act of writing.
Should you protect profits? Yes. But run for the hills? No.
I guess confidence is the only thing that I take from project to project, but I'm always open to learning everybody's style - the director, the actor I'm working with.