Don't just develop one talent--develop two or more. You will find that they feed each other.

Draw a person as best you can. Note that your skill in anatomy as an artist is always the equivalent of your perception of character when you write about a person.

If your literary depiction of a person is shallow or sketchy, try developing your drawing skills in anatomy. Begin with the skeletal system, and, when you have mastered that, progress to the muscular system. Be mindful of light, shadow, and three-dimensional rendition (a.k.a. "roundness").

Afterward, write about a person and note the improvement in your psychological understanding of that person.

It's all about powers of observation. And if you tell me that you are not interested in drawing human beings, why should I believe you when you say that you are interested in writing about them?

Write to change a reader's life, not a reader's mind, and know the difference between the two.

After writing and polishing your work, never ask yourself how it would come out had you done it another way. Your what-if work will not only lack spontaneity, it will also come out as over-written.

The FIRST version that emerges from your psyche will always be the most truthful one.

Any attempts to redo it will be your subconscious, defense mechanisms' efforts to disguise truth.

Tony Perez's Art of War: Like an arrow in a quiver, keep silent until you need to be used.

A hundred years from now, who will care what your particular preferences were?

Fear is always a herald of the new.

A constant lack of clarity in your works is always an indication that you fear not having enough depth, and that you would rather that your works be misunderstood than be judged as being trite.

Shake off that fear. Everything you say is important because no other writer will ever say it the way you can and the way you do.