Because you don’t know when to turn. Or when to double back. Or even when you’ve made it out. We *need* walls and forks and dead ends that force us to make decisions, to go left or right or up or down.
Limit your time, format, word count, and audience.
“What I discovered,” said Kevin Kelly, founding editor of WIRED, “which is what many writers discover, is that I write in order to think. I’d say, I think I have an idea, but when I begin to write it, I realize I have no idea—and I don’t actually know what I think *until* I try to write it.”
said Thompson. “It’s unwritten, but it’s understood. Rule Zero. And Rule Zero is *don’t fuck with cats*.”
It came out extemporaneously, in a moment of passion. Lewis heard it, liked it, thought about it, and ultimately decided to make this spontaneous turn of phrase the title of his film.
The title of the sensational true-crime documentary, *Don’t Fuck With Cats*, was *not* conceived by the film’s writer and director, Mark Lewis. It was spoken off the cuff, during an interview with one of the film’s subjects, Deanna Thompson.
Suddenly, the dog is gone, just a puppy, too. Her name was Maya. A car. A driver, driving. I don’t know. Doesn’t matter. I’m depressed. Sad for Maya. Sad for my mom, my dad, the sobbing, the grief, Christ. I don’t want to work. I can’t write, can’t start.