Self-portraits

One night, when I was 15 or 16, my father called me to his bedside to pronounce. “Your mother tells me,” said he, “that you don’t feel you can talk to me.” Truth. “I wan’t you to know you can talk to me about anything. It’s just that I’m never going to say another word to you.” He was true to his word; one of the very few times that I’m aware of. He died 10 years later with us having never exchanged another word.

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Learn to Love Writing

You will be asked to write. Think about your writing process carefully and be open to new ideas about how to approach it.

Writing is, at a minimum, a two-step process: you write, you edit. Writing and editing are distinct steps. Don’t try to edit your writing as you write your first draft; you’ll trip over your own creativity. Get your ideas down, then edit. Then get more ideas down and edit them.

Ideally, you would repeat the writing-editing process several dozen times to further refine your prose. After you’ve written and edited your work, you’ll need to share your draft with others, who will edit it and rewrite portions of it. Set your ego aside. Focus on improving the writing and, through that experience, your default writing style.

This takes time.

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