Put aside the pansies; put aside the poppies; put aside the bees...this is the week of lilies...

I have so much to write about but I can't because it is sensitive material...

That sounds pretentious...but it is so...delicious gossip that I can't deliver...and so...advice from Joyce Carol Oates on the art of writing.

1.       Don’t try to anticipate an ideal reader – or any reader. He/she might exist – but is reading someone else.

And even more intriguing: The first sentence can be written only after the last sentence has been written.