1. Try not to concentrate too much on the words with which you want to communicate your idea, but on the idea itself...

2. ...but I think being 'well-read' is often stifling to one's own self-expression.

Hey Bellig,

Rule 1 swings, Rule 2 sucks.

We are what we hear, see, and read. The originality is in the integration. We read for ideas and we write to express ideas. Why else would we read or write?

And if we sing "I Gotta Be Me" we don't become Sammy Davis Jr. bar-hopping Las Vegas, we remain our less-than-glamourous off-key selves.

Andy Warhol didn't like to read so he painted pictures of tomato soup cans which were bought by other people who didn't like to think. Let us ask ourselves this: Do we really want Art Historians of the future laughing at our painted cans? I didn't think so. Thank you.