Andrew Sullivan has a couple of guest bloggers while he’s visiting England (sniff!). One of them, Walter Kirn, grabbed my attention with an account of how he’s writing his new novel…

…spinning a tale before one knows the ending, and doing so without the opportunity to double back and fiddle with the beginning, is storytelling in its wild, natural state…. Next time you make up a children’s bedtime story, you’ll see exactly what I mean. The only direction is onward. Trust in inspiration, not second thoughts. In foresight, not hindsight. In spells, not science. And glance around the bedroom for ideas. That painting of a sailing ship? It’s time to send one of your characters to sea, perhaps. That other painting of an idyllic farm? That’s what your character dreams of once he’s shipwrecked on the barren Pacific island.

What a lovely way to think about story-telling: as a performance, not as designing something to fit into a book-shaped container.