Editor's Note: In conjunction with his publication of his new book, "Good Prose," Pulitzer Prize winner and bestselling author Tracy Kidder and editor Richard Todd will host “Good Prose Month” on Biographile.com, with the goal of bringing together the strongest voices in nonfiction to share insight into the writing and editing process with the next generation of authors. Every day during the month of January, visit Biographile.com for a new Good Prose tip, lesson, or story from bestselling authors, award-winning journalists, acclaimed editors, and favorite storytellers. The conversation will continue on Twitter with a weekly #GoodProse chat about the craft of writing, hosted by selected authors from a range of nonfiction genres.
The following are our favorite pieces of advice given over the course of Good Prose Month. 
“Try to attune yourself to the sound of your own writing. If you can’t imagine yourself saying something aloud, then you probably shouldn't write it.”
“I encourage everyone to write a memoir, whether they publish it or not…It's one thing to live your choices, but another thing to write them down. It's a good exercise.”
"Some people have asked me why I traveled to meet the scientists I profiled in Animal Wise. 'Why didn’t you just interview them on Skype, on the phone, or ask questions through email?' Certainly, you can write a book that way. I always find that nothing replaces a one-on-one meeting. I don’t think I would have found out that Nigel Franks, the ant researcher at the University of Bristol, calls his ants 'people' if I’d been interviewing him on the phone. I doubt that the dog cognition researcher, Adam Miklosi, would have confided that he is not a dog person at all, but that he loves cats. And I find it difficult to picture Lou Herman opening up about the fates of his dolphins, if we weren’t talking face-to-face. Through my visits, I gathered details and intimate stories like these, and others that let me paint word pictures of the scientists at work and with their animals.”
“Please be aggressive about double-checking spellings…Use the dictionary -- particularly to determine if a term is one word, two words, or hyphenated; don’t rely on your memory.  And if a proper noun looks suspicious to you, confirm it.”
“It helps if you’re a crybaby, which is to say it helps if you feel things very deeply and respond to them, whether with actual tears or not. (If he’s not already, John Boehner should be a writer.)
Along with a great deal of sensitivity, you need to develop and practice the habit of noticing…You need to notice all the time, and then tell what you saw in a new way. As for the notion that everything has already been said, maybe it has, but life is like meatloaf: there are so many different ways to present it. What’s unique about you is what makes your writing interesting, and what makes it shine. It is yet another reason why you should never try to imitate other writers."
 “The best way to avoid writer’s block, I’ve discovered, is to simply deny that it exists. It has no medical diagnostic code that I know of. Many things masquerade as block. If you can’t sit still in your chair, you’re bored, not blocked. If you are running a temperature of 103, you’re sick, not blocked. If you are laboring in the shadow of a previous best seller and know the critics will say your powers are waning, rip out a bodice ripper, take the hit, and then go back to the book you wanted to write. It will seem brilliant.”
  • You will never be able to anticipate everybody's reaction to your work. Don't try.
  • The book will end and become something new.
  • Publication will not change your life, but writing will.
“If there’s one good tip a stand-up comic can give a writer, here it is: it’s never as good or as bad as you think. Don’t sweat it if you bomb or people hate your latest Huffington Post blog. More importantly, though, don’t get an inflated ego over something you know is mediocre…Even when your book wins the Pulitzer, remember that when you wrote it, it wasn’t perfect. It was a draft."
"I know it’s a cliché, but write the book of your heart.  Jumping on a trend bandwagon won’t work if that type of book isn’t one you’re passionate about writing."
 “Be willing to surprise yourself.”