Sometimes when I’m stuck, I’ll open an English textbook, and do the homework.

There are a lot of college writing textbooks that will include essays and short stories, and after reading the story or essay, there will be questions such as “Have YOU Had any experience with a pedophile in YOUR family?” or “When was the last time you saw YOUR mother drunk?” and they’re just really good at prompting stories. You answer the question, and sometimes that can spring into a story.

You know, this is really good advice: I mean, I don’t have advice to offer on many things, but THAT is good advice, and you’re NOT gonna hear it from a lot of other places.

Sedaris did an Ask Me Anything on Reddit.

Another bit I liked was his response to “What’s one thing you wished you knew about writing when you first started out?” I basically feel the same way about my blogging.

I wish I’d understood that people were actually going to read what I wrote.

For some reason, that came as the biggest surprise to me!

I got that they would buy the books, I would see them at the cash register, handing over their money. That I understood. But i never occurred to me that they would actually read them.

That’s terrifying.

Well, I think especially when you get older as a writer and you look back at things that you wrote 30 years ago, it’s so embarrassing for you, and the thought that somebody in Lincoln, Nebraska, is reading that right now… makes me want to cry BLOOD.