Disjointed phrases, convoluted transitions, all the hesitations and stutters and backflips found in a real interaction.

Here’s a useful reminder for when you’re on the cusp of speaking over a morning coffee.

How does a sketch entice a reader?

How do writers find confidence?

What it takes to finish the novel.

How does a writer see?

How does a rehearsed speech appear spontaneous?

Nothing shakes my confusion: how are these new words?

What you want in a Bellow novel is to hear the vibrations: the sorcery is Bellow’s ear for the street.

Make the faster parts slow, and make the slower parts fast.

For every jittery student, there’s a jittery teacher.

Where the sun falls and time doesn’t exist.

When you watch yourself lie.

Here we have the rise, machinations, and collapse of a kingdom.

Here are the convenient, pacifying, comfortable fictions.

More calm during the action; more action during the calm.

How to explain all that failed ambition?

How does Alice Munro conceal the propulsion of her stories?

How does Elif Shafak sidestep the temptation of cliché?

Why does Karl Ove Knausgård's writing captivate so many people? Writers should consider the question.