Dear Geist,

What exactly is pre-writing and how much writing time should I devote to it? My writers’ group spent most of our last meeting talking about pre-writing. That was the first time I heard of it but I was too shy to say so.

Dear Antonio,

is a misnomer—these activities are not separate processes but essential stages of writing. You may employ them again, often, during the physical writing down of sentences, and vice versa. For oodles of great pre-writing suggestions, search the Web. But don’t get stuck in pre-writing. It will get you moving and focus you, but you’ll still have to string those words and sentences together.