Pondering

Dear Pondering,

Thanks for sharing, but you don't sound torn at all. Someone who is truly torn would have written at least 900 words on the subject, and your letter clocks in at just over 50. You're not facing any decision at all. If you're in the middle, then that puts you somewhere in Kansas, I believe. Learn about wheat farming. Forget about these two clowns and shape your own life. Become somebody.

Dear Mr. Blue,

No News Is Bad News

Dear No News,

Put all this energy to some use and make a story out of it. Not a story about a novelist but one about a man who has written a scorching letter to the editor of the local newspaper and who is beside himself all night, waiting to see if it's printed, going over and over the text in his mind, worrying that the paper will edit his best lines. The letter is a jeremiad against the city for its lax maintenance of boulevards. To the man with the stress headache, it is a work of art. There you are. A free idea from Mr. Blue. Go write it. And leave your agent alone. She's representing you, so let her represent. Three weeks is nothing. Three months is not that long. Do you really want to suffer over each and every boob who turns up his nose at your novel? No, you don't. And let me give you some unsolicited advice: When the novel comes out, don't read the reviews. Have someone put them in an envelope for you and read them five years later. This will save you a great deal of suffering.

Dear Mr. Blue,

Ambitious

Dear Ambitious,

I'm guessing that you're talking about freelance magazine writing, nonfiction. If you think now is the time to try, then probably it is. Writing demands dedication and maybe it's better if you don't hedge your bet, don't get a day job, but try to go at the writing straight on. But the human imagination does not necessarily respond to ultimatums, and if one burns one bridges and sits down at the computer and says, "Write!" it ain't necessarily going to happen. But you know that. Why are you terrified of failure? Failure is part of life, certainly endemic in the writing biz. One needs to be ready to abandon ship and launch another. We fail every day. We simply don't tell anyone and thereby maintain a certain aura of credibility.

Dear Mr. Blue,

Christian

Dear Christian,

Generally speaking, I don't favor answering a question before it's been asked, but if it puts you at ease, you could initiate a conversation about religious faith early in a date. You and the young man arrive at the restaurant and, by the time the bread basket is brought to the table, you turn to him and tell him about a fascinating passage in the epistle to the Ephesians that you've been thinking about all day. This will put him on notice that you are who you are, a valiant woman, and not who he might like to imagine you to be, an easy lay. And the epistle to the Ephesians is actually pretty interesting to talk about.

Maya Angelou reads from "The Heart of a Woman"