In writing or any other art, it’s essential to retain the capability for unrestrained messiness, to encourage an overwhelming free flow of ideas.  But it’s just as important to be capable of being clean and organized, so people can understand the formless richness I’ve tapped.

I found myself realizing how inherently boring literature is.  In the end, what is it but black squiggles on a pale surface?  So my duty as a writer is then to painstakingly arrange these squiggles as best as I know how, and to transport my audience as viscerally as I possibly can.

The quest to hoard and store power is limited…Unless you seek to merge with that which is the source of all power itself.

Hustling my writing is part of the fun.  It is the arrogant writer who believes that readers should come to him/her, and the creative artist who believes they should make an art of everything.  That includes advertising, or the act of reaching out to the audience.

Every joy/hate/boon/inconvenience should be mined for the sake of your art/work.  Some people express this as “Om Mani Padme Hum,”:  The divine is in everything.  I like how Musashi said it better, because he emphasized knowledge and perception:  “If you know the way broadly, you will see it in all things.”

Creativity has a molten core of infinite possibilities.  The artist must extract iron from it and arrange it into solid structures so others may appreciate it.  And that’s where it’s tricky:  Being fluid enough to enter that core and garner that molten inspiration while being structured enough to make solid iterations of it.

There are tons of legitimate excuses.  I’ve heard widespread acceptance of my failures when I explain myself.  But I don’t want to be the guy who “understandably failed.”  I want to die as the guy who got things done.  To Hell with the reasons or circumstances.  Those obstacles are just challenges/opportunities to exercise creativity and SOMEHOW prevail.

If cravings and desires are the gravitational chains that bind you to dirty inevitabilities, then discipline and audacity are the jets that allow you to soar into the untouched sky.