Never Apologize. Never Explain.

...the Men Eyed Her With The Automatic Mix Of Curiosity, Lust, And Aesthetic Judgment They Always Gave Young Women, Subject To Object, The Way You'd Stare At An Animal. She Pretended Not To Notice. To Remind Them She Was A Person Was Too Much Effort. Objects Bore No Guilt.

Most People Write The Same Sentence Over And Over Again. The Same Number Of Words-say, 8-10, Or 10-12. The Same Sentence Structure. Try To Become Stretchy-if You Generally Write 8 Words, Throw A 20 Word Sentence In There, And A Few Three-word Shorties. If You're Generally A 20 Word Writer, Make Sure You Throw In Some Threes, Fivers And Sevens, Just To Keep The Reader From Going Crosseyed.

It's Their Skins I'm Peeling," She Said. "the Skins Of The Insipid Scribblers, Which I Graft To The Page, Creating Monsters Of Meaninglessness.

Always Learn Poems By Heart. They Have To Become The Marrow In Your Bones. Like Fluoride In The Water, They'll Make Your Soul Impervious To The World's Soft Decay.

This Involves More Than I Can Discuss Here, But Do It. Read The Writers Of Great Prose Dialogue-people Like Robert Stone And Joan Didion. Compression, Saying As Little As Possible, Making Everything Carry Much More Than Is Actually Said. Conflict. Dialogue As Part Of An Ongoing World, Not Just Voices In A Dark Room. Never Say The Obvious. Skip The Meet And Greet.