At 11 and 12, our imaginations were on fire. As was our love of language. See the alliteration? Hear the sound of those plants? Sense that pacing? Scene setting? Conflict and drama?

Listening and telling stories can get you over whatever mountain you are facing.

Finding a path in the not so far off distance.

I saw Joni Mitchell at the Hollywood Bowl a few weeks ago. I’m not over it and hope to never be.

What art can do for the soul, words can do for art.

Words are the bricks. Sentences are the floor boards and high beams of our written work.

Hear hear for the little things!

Reading is more pleasurable when you find the right spot.

A camera’s lens teaches you how to see without a camera.

— Dorothea Lange

Taking your story to the page isn’t only about holding it in your hands - the process offers the writer a chance for healing.

There are stories important enough to make you stop what you are doing and tell it again.

Reframing a work of words helps a piece finds its identity.

Time to revise, reinterpret, represent the hard work you have done and transform it into something you can call art.

Welcoming reexamination is a useful skill to cultivate not only in making art but in navigating life. It provides practice in embracing, rather than fearing, change.

December is the ideal month to take a second look at where you’ve been.

Growth is an erratic forward movement: two steps forward, one step back.

But once you’ve retrieved the pieces of your story, laying them out doesn’t automatically lead to a flow of thoughtfully expressed words. You need to reflect - you are mining for the literary gold in your experience.

Retracing is review; tracing a thing back to its source. A process that poignantly dovetails with writing personal narrative.

Returning is what most often brings people to the page to write a difficult story from their life.

The words we choose shape the way we remember things.