Wild Mind

. That was the original flame. It was good enough, but along the way I mixed it all up. I thought it could heal the world; it could heal me; it could do everything, because I felt so good when I wrote. I took one step ahead of the ordinary good act of writing. I wanted to become successful, noticed, famous, so I could finally get the love and attention I didn’t get as a child.

I took writing outside writing. I took my life outside life. I wanted to throw it way ahead of me, thinking it would cure something way behind me. “If I get famous, then... ,” “If I get this book finished, then... ,” “If I win this grant, then... ,” “If I get published, then...”

We need to let writing be writing and let it give us what it gives us in the moment. If we connect with anything in the moment, it frees us of the past, present, and future. We are just there. If we are chopping wood, we are chopping wood; brushing our teeth, brushing our teeth; walking, walking.

Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency. Nothing is that important. Just lie down.

“I wanted to learn what prose had to teach me. I was a poet for thirteen years.

Plot echoes a structure or a design to the universe—cause and effect, karma.

Well, E. M. Forster wrote that a story is: The king died, the queen died. A plot is: The king died, the queen died of grief.”

Changing the verb tense can change the whole tone of the piece.

AM AMAZED BY the power of verbs. They carry the energy for a sentence. They are the action. Think of sentences without them: Vivian a tire onto the rack; Fido a lamb chop. Verbs are the stars that light up the dark sky: Vivian hoisted a tire onto the rack. Fido devoured a lamb chop. They are the joint that moves the sentence, like the elbow that connects the upper and lower arm.

, I get it! Thirty-six details equal one cosmic statement. We can make a game like Monopoly. Detail cards: shoe, gum, horse, toenail. Cosmic cards: I hate you, God is love, Truth is beautiful. It is a perfect Santa Fe game. They’d have to shut up until they made some grounded statements.”

Poetry is a dumb Buddha who thinks a donkey is as important as a diamond.

Feel the dignity and integrity of each word you write down.