Years ago, at my first creative writing workshop at Kenyon College, Rosanna Warren (Robert Penn Warren’s daughter) told me three things about my writing.

First, your ear is your gift. Second, read the Norton Anthology of Poetry from cover to cover. Lastly, take your writing more seriously. (Actually, she said stop writing junk.) In the interest of full disclosure, I never read the 2,256-page poetry anthology from cover to cover. Did I become a novelist to avoid having to read that tome?

Interestingly, the next year, at a Kenyon workshop, the poet David Baker told me that my ear is now my enemy.

But I learned something else from Rosanna Warren at that first summer workshop. I learned that it is not only okay to start out knowing virtually nothing about creative writing, but that knowing nothing is the point where you start building your personal storehouse of knowledge and experience.