Joy Sullivan, From Instructions For Traveling West: Poems; “Instructions For Traveling West”

the classic trope of "what if you went to a town and it was weird" never fails

Patti Smith

what your favorite William Morris print says about you (a non-exhaustive list)

strawberry thieves: you're a basic bitch and there's nothing wrong with that. those little fuckers are cute

tree of life: you think we all moved on from the whimsigoth trend way too soon

pimpernel: you're going to put an Alphonse Mucha print on top of this and you know it

voysey: you're a massive goth. you've probably watched Bram Stoker's Dracula a lot

blackthorn: you're a massive goth who doesn't like making things too hard on yourself

willow boughs: you say "timeless" "classic" and "modern twist" a lot when decorating your house

owl and willow: admit it- you really just want mid-19th century panoramic wallpaper

melsetter: admit it- you really just want 15th-century Gobelin tapestries

lodden: you genuinely believe, deep down, that you will decode the Voynich Manuscript someday

marigold: you enjoy versatility. you probably own the same shirt in four colors- and why shouldn't you?

balmoral: your ringtone is Rule, Brittania

I don't have a favorite Morris print because I prefer [insert another late 19th century textile/wallpaper designer here]: you are a hipster

I don't have a favorite Morris print because I don't know any: you have a social life

Mr Gaiman, I wonder if you can help me. I have so many story ideas but any time I try to work on one I get nowhere and immediately hit a wall. Do you have any idea what I could be doing wrong?

Perhaps you are expecting it to be easy. Walls are there to be climbed or knocked down or gone around. You don't have to stop just because it gets hard or you get stuck or you don't know what happens next. If you get stuck, figure out how to get unstuck. If it's not working, do what you have to do to get it working.

Take the story idea. Write down what you know about it. Write down the characters you know going into it. And then think about where your story starts (which is often not the place that the overall story begins) and whose eyes we are seeing it through and where and how you want to begin.

If you hit a wall, go forward, don't stop. Skip to the next scene where you know what happens. Write a bad version of a scene you can fix later. Do what needs doing to keep moving.

sometimes I take life really seriously but actually the key is 2 relax. Be silly. Try new things. See my friends. Create plans that I look forward 2. Spend time with nice warm people.

“Sometimes we just have to cut off the dead branches in our life. Sometimes that’s the only way we can keep the tree alive. It’s hard and it hurts, but it’s what’s best.”

— Nicole Williams

“One of the things I had to learn as a writer was to trust the act of writing. To put myself in the position of writing to find out what I was writing.”

— E. L. Doctorow

Albert Camus, from a novel titled "The Fall," first published in 1956

“As we grow into adulthood, we secretly expect our closest relationships to make our healing fantasies come true. Our subconscious expectations for other people come straight from this childhood fantasy world. We believe that if we keep at it long enough, we will eventually get people to change. We might think our emotional loneliness will finally be healed by a partner who always thinks of our needs first or a friend who never lets us down. Often these unconscious fantasies are quite self-defeating. For example, one woman secretly believed that if only she could make her depressed father happy, she would finally be free in her own life to do what she wanted. She didn’t realize she was already free to live her own life, even if her father stayed miserable. Another woman was sure she could get the kind of love she longed for from her husband if she did everything he wanted. When he still didn’t give her the attention she thought she’d earned, she was furious with him. Her anger covered the anxiety she felt when she realized her healing story wasn’t working, even though she’d given it her best shot. Since childhood, she had been sure she could make herself lovable by being a “good” person. We usually have no idea that we’re trying to foist a healing fantasy on someone, but it can be seen in the little tests of love we put people through. It’s easier for an outsider to see how unrealistic the fantasy is. Successful marital therapy often involves exposing how people’s healing fantasies try to force their partners to give them the loving childhood they always wished for.”

— Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, Lindsay C. Gibson