Discovery still happens in the writing. You start in nonfiction with a whole lot more going for you, because all the discovery isn't waiting to be made. You've made some of it in the research. As you get deeper into a piece and do more research, the notes are in the direction of the piece - you're actually writing it.
Joan DidionI didnโt like it [computer] when I first began using it. Where itโs helped me a lot is in nonfiction which is a kind of different process. Youโve got research, youโve got your notes, You can block out what you want to work on for the next 10 pages and put it in another file, and then you can kind of carve it into shape
Joan DidionOn the whole, I don't want to think too much about why I write what I write. If I know what I'm doing ... I can't do it.
Joan DidionAbove all, she is the girl who 'feels' things, who has hung on to the freshness and pain of adolescence, the girl ever wounded, ever young. Now, at an age when the wounds begin to heal whether one wants them to or not, Joan Baez rarely leaves the Carmel Valley.
Joan Didion