Remember

Other good things to remember:

1. Eat food when writing unless that’s not helpful.

2. Write after the kids go to sleep unless you don’t want to and you are tired and you want to watch TV or read Keturah and Lord Death and think about how beautiful Martine Leavitt is and how smart she is and how you’ll never be as smart or beautiful so why do you even try.

3. Listen to your kids and if you can, take notes. Especially if they call Doritos Dortos and they call the Loch Ness Monster the Lock Nessy Monster and if one of them tells you that there are a million ice cream stores on the earth and you ask them how they know and they say before they were born they looked down on the planet and they saw all the ice cream stores and that’s how they decided to come. Write all that down.

4. Write weird stuff. Surprise yourself.

5. Be happy.

6. Shave your head if you’re depressed.

7. Make yourself keep going even if you think what you’re writing is stupid and that you are stupid and that it’s never going to turn out and it’s all too hard and the other idea is better and that’s what you should do, start a different book because that book won’t get hairy in the middle at all because the next project is always better and always funnier and alway easier than the one you’re supposed to be working but even if that were true, my friends, even if that were so true, you have to keep going. Keep writing. Don’t stop. FINISH. FINISH FINISH FINISH. And then jump into a cold pool. And then get into a sauna. Or is that Iceland?

7. Eat a peach when you’re writing unless it will get juice on your keyboard.

8. Love your parents.

9. Write hard things.

10. Tell someone you love them. Someone who will be surprised you said it but will also know that you mean it. Say it even if it’s scary and maybe they won’t say it back or they’ll feel weird and you’ll feel weird. Say it anyway. And feel it.