Do you ever find yourself, while googling for something specific, noticing something that launches you into a free-association romp, propelling you into crannies long forgotten or hitherto unknown?

Such discoveries can produce useful information, or mere entertainment. Before we had computers, curious people free-associated by hopscotching through a dictionary or an encyclopedia — an exciting excursion into self-education.

A few days ago, while I was searching for one thing, the name of a journalism-school classmate — Nina Straight — popped out at me, and I abandoned my original search to try to find out what had become of her. A meandering path led me to an article she wrote for Vanity Fair after the death in 2012 of her half-brother, the writer Gore Vidal.

She recounted that when she was 20, recently married and about to have her first child, Vidal wrote her a mixed-message letter, including good wishes, but also this: "After all, the mistake was in getting married before you'd had a life, but now that you are married I should think that the only thing to do is to live it whole-heartedly."

He encouraged her to use her sharp intellect and cultivate her curiosity. She did. His advice applies to any pursuit, certainly to the craft of clear writing. "The virtue of the arts," his letter went on, "is that one never masters one's form. The challenge goes on right to the end. One is held by curiosity: What is the next thing to be learned?"

Great advice about writing well abounds. One of the best pieces of advice relates directly to Vidal's. I cited it in an earlier column: The late journalist, novelist and screenwriter Pete Hamill said, "Read."

With your mind expanded you can connect matters seemingly unrelated and thereby create original images that readers have never thought of, images that can stay with them forever.

Similes and metaphors. Among the favorite similes and metaphors that readers sent in, these stand out. Quoting a simile from the mystery novel "Dead West," by Matt Goldman: "[Being a Minnesota Vikings fan] is so fraught with anxiety and disappointment it's like being in middle school for the rest of your life."

From another reader, quoting a metaphor in a holiday newsletter: "As we lurch toward a new year, that time when life's tectonic plates converge and the past, present, and future meet, we're thinking about our goals."

My inbox is still open for more.

Twin Cities writing coach Gary Gilson is at www.writebetterwithgary.com.