Don’t short-circuit creativity.

Once, while writing, I looked up a word I was unsure of. It would have added a special ring to the opening sentence of a paragraph I had in mind ... if I was correct about the meaning. It was difficult to find the metaphoric meaning I had in mind, but I persisted and eventually I satisfied myself with the usage. Armed with the authorization to use my cool-sounding word, as I put pen to paper (I still write that way sometimes), I realized I had forgotten the sentence I intended to use it in. Not only that, the whole paragraph had disappeared from memory.

Don’t short-circuit creativity. What I should have done was written the paragraph with the word, then looked it up later.

When ideas are flowing, it is more important to harness that ephemeral creativity than to be precise in every detail. Rewriting and editing can be done any time. But ideas have a way of flying away.