Speaking a foreign language does not require you to think in that language, but writing in a foreign language demands it.

It is therefore safe to say that a person who writes in more than one language has more than one ego-image.

Your camera and cell phone camera are ways of "taking notes". The pictures you take help you refresh your sense memory, reflect, and recall your experiences.

Facebook is not a writer's medium. All of your posts will be ephemeral by default, and many of your old posts will be hard to retrieve. Some will altogether disappear.

The real Akashic records are on Google+.

Never think of your works in terms of titles.

Do not write down a title and make the body of your text conform to it. Rather, work the other way around. The body of your text, once completed, will show you what its title should be, whether you like it or not.

Whenever you write a title first, you have no choice but to write the body of the text from your conscious. The material will not flow from your creative unconscious.

It is not difficult to be a writer, but it is extremely difficult to be a disciplined writer.

The writing table of the ancient Chinese scholar had five stimuli that corresponded to the five senses: a musical instrument, a bell, or a birdcage with a nightingale (sound); a porcelain dish of fruit or sweetmeats and a cup of tea or wine (taste); a vase of flowers (smell); an exquisite longevity stone (touch); and a hanging scroll with a scene from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms or inspiring words (sight).

Writing is a sensual delight, and that is something we should always keep in mind despite technology.

Write in your bedroom, because that is also where you dream.

Flush out and upgrade. Give away or throw away the writing materials you've grown tired of or will never use. Otherwise they will only be there as excess baggage that you will constantly and subconsciously associate with writing.

Experiment with various writing instruments and identify your most comfortable medium.

Write with a pencil, a ball point pen, a roller ball pen, a sign pen, a gel pen, a fountain pen, a dip pen, a quill pen. Write with fine-pointed nibs, broad nibs, fancy nibs. Write using a variety of inks--try the colored inks of J. Herbin, Private Reserve, Caran d'Ache, Noodler's--there are brilliant inks, watered-down inks, and pastel-hued inks--you can dilute them with water and mix them, if you like. You might as well try different kinds of paper too.

What is your folder or notebook cover made of? Leather, fabric, carved wood, metal, cardboard, plastic?

Be aware also that you shouldn't get fixated on the same materials. You grow, you change, you develop finer preferences. Like good food, your writing materials should have variety.

Cherish your writing instruments. Never write with a cheap pen that doesn't appeal to you or on paper you've just been dying to get rid of.

Pamper your creative mind and heart.

Take out all those wonderful writing implements you've been keeping in storage and enjoy using them NOW.

Whatever you are writing, give it YOUR ALL.

Have you ever wondered why you've been producing only minor works, or even mediocre ones?

Here is the reason: You've been withholding the best part of yourself in reserve for other, future works--whether consciously or subconsciously.

Write in the present, and be 100% there, whatever you are writing. Write everything as though you are ALREADY writing your great novel or full-length play.

Workshop Exercise

"Automatic Writing"

Do not plan to write anything in particular. Clear your mind and poise your pen over a blank sheet of paper or sit in front of your computer with a blank page on Microsoft Word.

Relax, center yourself, let down your defense mechanisms

Begin writing/encoding--just move your pen or your fingers on the keyboard--and allow material to flow from you, even if you start out by producing nonsense or gibberish.

As long as you allow words to flow freely, you will find yourself authoring the beginning of an interesting poem, short story, essay, novel, or play.

This is how the world was created after all--not through deliberate planning but through the spontaneous emanation of light and truth.

Any organization may avail of this workshop.

The program partner is required to:

--Provide a maximum of 20 participants seated in a circle inside a clean, quiet room
--Provide each participant with writing instruments, bond paper, and a box of 24 crayons

The room should have:

--A whiteboard or a blackboard
--Masking tape or scotch tape

Participants should be informed that, although this is for the most part a creative writing workshop, they will be tasked to produce minimal, actual writing, such as one phrase, one sentence, or one paragraph, per exercise. This will enable them to undergo as many exercises as possible, and to apply what they have learned outside the workshop rather than do lengthy writing, which consumes time, within the workshop.

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