Quite a few of the pieces I've put up here have been about writing. If the goal for this space is to publish things that are valuable to readers besides me (and it is), then what am I achieving when I write about writing?
Let's explore.
Trusting the Zero Drafts
A bunch of the zero drafts I wrote when I started actively playing with the What-if rules had to do with the process itself. In zero-drafting, it's axiomatic that you will write about what you need to write about. Honest zero-drafting is an exploration of the unknown.
Of course that doesn't mean that everything should be published. Sometimes you machete your way through the jungles of your mind only to plunge out onto a sidewalk in the most boring wonder-bread suburban housing development you've ever seen. "I'll go ahead and leave this one off the map," you think. And you dive back into the jungle.
But if you keep ending up in that same stupid housing development ("Jesus," you say. "Did they build these things out of friggin' cardboard?"), maybe you should take a closer look around. Maybe things aren't as boring as they seem. Maybe it's all "Invasion of the Pod People" around here or something.
Your intuition keeps leading you back here. Trust it. Find out why.