I have known very few writers, but those I have known, and whom I respect, confess（供认） at once that they have little idea where they are going when they first set pen to paper. They have a character, perhaps two. They are in that condition of eager（渴望的） discomfort which passes for inspiration（灵感）. All admit radical（基本的） changes of destination once the journey has begun. One, to my certain knowledge, spent nine months on a novel about Kashmir, then reset（重新安排） the whole thing in the Scottish Highlands. I never heard of anyone making a skeleton as we were taught at school.

  In the breaking and remaking, in the timing, interweaving（(使)交织）, beginning afresh, the writer comes to discern（目睹） things in his material which were not consciously（有意识地） in his mind when he began. This organic（[有化] 有机的） process, often leading to moments of extraordinary（非凡的） self（自己）-discovery, is of an indescribable（难以形容的） fascination（魔力）.