Two questions for writing

Two questions were on my mind during the writing process.

Where’s the weird?

Are you being precious?

The first question focused me on exploring both the edges and the core, two places that paradoxically contain the most weird. And when you touch both the extremes and the core, you really are touching the whole thing and thus I was wholly me.

The second question was a challenge to not get stuck on one idea, one angle, one thought. There were always more thoughts coming around the corner. Ideas never come alone, they come together. If you’re precious with one idea and don’t let it breathe, you don’t know what ideas it was coming with. So I let the weird flow, becoming a real audience to my own writing. Not as a critic, but as a reader ready to follow where the ideas lead. That’s the editing side now.

Refining ideas. That’s an insightful process, to come back to old ideas. It’s like watching a movie again, knowing how it ended, so now you’re just looking for more clues as you watch. Seeing what other hints you can pick up on, what other ideas snuck in while you weren’t looking. The weird ones always find a way to hide in plain sight.