Writing is thinking. It’s a writer’s cliché, but a good one. When you first conceive a lecture, dissertation chapter, a book, even an article for Active History, everything seems so straightforward. “This one will be a cinch,” you think. “Two days, tops.” Once you actually sit down to write, that boundless optimism meets an unceremonious death. Writing is hard. It’s painful. To write is to submit yourself to seasons of self-doubt. The ideas seemed so natural and free-flowing in your head. Now you get to the page. And what comes out is jilted, ham-fisted, and awkward. You are again and again confronted with nagging questions. What am I even trying to say? Who even cares? Why even bother?

Given the nature of this experience, it is not surprising that people would jump at the opportunity to skip the pain and get right to the end. Or at least to an end. Because any writer can tell you that the end is determined by the path taken to get there. Rare is the piece that gets written exactly how it was outlined. Why? Because writing is thinking.