There is no road. Your footsteps are the road. (Paraphrased from Antonio Machado)

If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it’s not your path. You make your path with your footsteps. (Paraphrased from Joseph Campbell)

There is no way through to Cold Mountain.

More writing rules:

1. Start with an image. Write to the image. Write within the image.

2. Start each scene at the last possible moment.

3. Leave out everything you possibly can leave out (Hemingway)

4. Find the emotion in each scene, and that will create the emotional throughline of the story (James Franco on how they made Rise of the Planet of the Apes).

5. About two-thirds of the way through the novel, the story finally teaches you how to tell it.

6. A long poem must turn three times.

7. Just when you think you know what comes next, you have to twist it.