Why you sometimes need to shut down the music to hear the music.

A great practice to adopt if you want to write—whether prose or poetry or songs, fiction or nonfiction.

Becoming a writer is not a matter of accumulating clips and making a living with words; you have to earn your badge again and again.

This, I’m convinced, is the essential attribute and habit of artists of every medium, more important than particular talents or skills: They pay attention.