Never write or paint to "express yourself". That is the typical excuse used by K-12 teachers of their students, and by mediocre artists.

To find out if you are a world-class writer, draw or paint. Your drawing or your painting will give you the definitive answer.

To find out if you are a world-class artist, write. Your writing will give you the definitive answer.

The title of your novel should never be more interesting than the novel itself.

The writer seeks the mysteries of the day.

It is all too easy to write from the mind, for that is what everyone does at school and at work. The rules for doing this are available in classrooms and in books. 

It is also easy to do automatic writing. You simply hold a pen over a sheet of paper, let go, and let the writing flow from your unconscious.

You need a guide, however, when writing from the heart, because it is an art that harnesses your intuition and your emotion, and only a mentor who truly loves you can help you do that. When writing from the heart, your write not only from your present lifetimes but also from your past and your future lifetimes. When writing from the heart, your consciousness is the consciousness of love. No book or writing instrument, no matter how expensive, can bring you there on its own. 

The process of painting is a joy only when you know exactly what to do next in your work in progress.

Rediscover Edna Ferber and reread her works. Her power of description is superb. She is perhaps the only writer I know of who can arouse a gamut of emotions by sheer description alone.

When a writer cannot handle description well, his work will tend to be boring.

Then try this exercise:

Write a short story using description alone. For example, describe a tree. Or the night. Or the facade of a stranger's house.

See how you can infuse a descriptive paragraph with action, narrative, and conflict.