Creativity Tips: Lessons from Fourth Grade

In my attempt to turn the recent basement flood into a positive*, I've been using the resulting disarray as incentive to clean things up. And I found this among the school papers from Mary's fourth-grade class:

From the author talk today I learned ...

that you never, never, never give up.

And don't throw away your first draft.

I can't think of any better advice.

*Pollyanna lives. And don't cold, wet Octobers make you want to watch Pollyanna? Possibly with a cold, wet beverage ... but still.