Typed manuscript : [Sittard, Netherlands], to [James L. Harmon], [1990 Aug. 16].

Being a short essay with advice to young writers, written in response to a request from Mr. Harmon, to be included in Harmon's forthcoming book to be titled "Take My Advice: Letters to the Next Generation from People Who Know a Thing or Two;" Saying "Never forget what you were born knowing : this fluke, single, huge, cross-indexed, thermodynamic experiment of a story that the world has been inventing to tell itself at bedtime is still in embryo. It's not even the outline of a synopsis of notes toward a rough draft yet....Shake yourself loose of the local. Take a full look at the worst...the meaningless economies fueled by waste, the exported shooting wars and their covert causes, the widening gulf between north and south, the nations on the brink, the child suicides, the built-in insanity of the race, the native immigrant denied due process in the next apartment over. Then work at whatever comes to hand. Useful or not, it makes no difference. Jumping in is the only calculus emergency ever allows. And in those years when you cannot believe that even this infinitely unlikely script is leading anywhere, never deny that you still want it to. Wait for hope's replacement...Stand still and tick off the smallest tip of the entire catalog in your head. Pleasure in existence is a moral imperative. Remember what your Driver's Education teacher...always told you: Good God, slow down. Leave yourself an out. Get the Big Picture."