Questioning is key to essay writing

The View from the Cheap Seats

Zen in the Art of Writing

Give Your Mind a Chance to Refresh

"Breaks give your mind a chance to refresh.  I write multiple books at once, and I'm always thinking about them, even if I'm not at a computer.  It's a habit I picked up as a litigator: You have 1,000 facts in your head, and the most important thing isn't that you know them all- it's that you crystallize them, so that you can present them clearly.  Epiphanies don't occur like a spark; they're actually ideas that have been floating around in your brain for a while.  By the time I sit down to write, my thoughts are well organized and come out cleanly."

I feel the spark of inspiration

"In reaching for the unknown—in that middle realm, somewhere between what I understand and what I have never before imagined—I feel the spark of inspiration begin to glow."

the ideas come

"Sometimes inspiration strikes and we sit down to write. But a writer knows the reverse is more common. We start to write and the ideas come."