crazy is what

Did you, as a 5th grader, write persuasive essays?  My kid is writing one on the evils of smoking. I've had a little trouble helping him with the structure of the thing (5th grade teachers send home NO instructions on assignments either.)  He asked me if I ever wrote a persuasive essay before.

I haven't laughed so hard in a long time.  "Dude," I said, "My whole blog is 5 years of persuasive essay."

Persuasive being the operative word, right? Sometimes I wonder just who the hell I'm trying to convince.  Like yesterday, I barrelled in with some views on competition, commiting to bits and bytes what I think I know.  And then some folks throw some stuff at me and I have to dig deeper, which basically led to a lot of questions, so the final outcome is that I don't know shit. Oh, I still think competition is  a lower form of finding yourself, yeah. And I know we as a species can do better, at least some of the time.  But hell, it added up to a lot of questions, so the final outcome is is that I don't know shit and I have to think more.

The most important thing I do, as a writer,  is think.  A lot. 

I'm a pretty quick writer when I know where I'm going, and I've wondered why in hell it takes me four days to hone a chapter.  Well, cuz  I'm a slow-ass thinker.  It's annoying, the folks who bang out great books quickly. But I wonder if they did most of their thinking beforehand.  I used to have to think when I wrote, but I got sick of rewriting when I thought up new stuff. So now I've been trying it, just removing my hands from the keyboard and staring out the window and thinking So far, it's working.  Problem is, I keep thinking more and more, like an addict. Thinking is like Coors Light or Chinese food, it never really fills you up. And the more I think the more I wonder and honestly, the more I wonder, the weirder I get. Me succumbing to curiosity is some scary, intense shit. I even frightened off a Turk the other night. What is it they call those old ladies who live mostly in their heads?  They're called crazy is what.

What is the most important part of your creative process?

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