Are you a dreamer, or are you deluded? — Maybe you find yourself lingering in stationery stores, stroking notebooks; or watching movies about struggling writers. It’s always there, this dream, nibbling away at your psyche. Sometimes, without you even realizing. Sometimes, after a few drinks, or during a vacation, when you allow your inner-voice to come out and play…

A step by step guide. — All those bros taking 5 a.m. cold showers? Why let them have all the fun, when cold showers… Wake you up Increase circulation Activate sexy-sounding “brown fat” that can increase lifespan Allow you to preach to people who have “normal” showers! Losers! But how do you actually turn that tap…

Repeat after me: ‘I am a writer’ — You could’ve taken a snap-shot of me and slapped it on the front of a university prospectus. I was standing outside the campus where I taught, literally jumping for joy. I had just been accepted into the University of British Columbia’s MFA in Creative Writing. They liked my writing. Someone…

Stop trying so hard — There’s a scene in the 2008 rom-com Forgetting Sarah Marshall, starring Paul Rudd and Jason Segel. Rudd’s character plays a surfer-dude, and he’s teaching Segel how to “pop up” (stand up from a prone position) on the board. “Don’t do anything…Don’t do it. …

Illuminate your message with storytelling — I watched as he rubbed the stick between his palms, twirling it faster and faster against the little notch he’d made in the log. …

Or, how to keep your special flower forever (and never fail) — I’m a great writer. A genius, really. I live wherever I want. I ponder on windswept beaches in the mornings, my mind wandering with the gulls, and punch out glorious stories on my typewriter in the afternoons. My stories touch millions of hearts. I change people’s lives with my words. …

Here’s how I stopped my anger rising with the thermometer — “I’d like you to leave by the first of June.” The eviction notice that every renter fears. “We’ve decided to move in,” my landlord lied, so as not to contravene the law that says you can only evict tenants for family reasons. But I knew the real reason. It was…

How to get high on life and write your pants off — The whiskey rushes though my veins as I rush to write down the ideas that come to me with burning clarity. I have discovered the meaning of life. I’ve seen the light. I need to get this shit down, before it’s lost to the world. The next morning I wake…

Every night I learn how to smoke, swear, and make sophisticated love on TV — They slow-dance across my screen at three-quarter speed, the continuous noise of their dialogue slowly separating into distinct words, some of which I’ve heard before. For a few seconds, I follow along. …