I love books and their characters and their writing. And I love to read about books and their characters and their writing.

So I adored this piece by Andrew Solomon in the New Yorker about advice to young writers.

It’s a short read and worth the click.

The part that resonated with me was this:

Remember that writing things down makes them real; that it is nearly impossible to hate anyone whose story you know; and, most of all, that even in our post-postmodern era, writing has a moral purpose.

Everyone has a story and sometimes it’s nice to escape into someone else’s world for a while.

Which brings us to this beautiful quote from Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke that Solomon cited:

If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for to the creator there is no poverty and no poor or unimportant place.