" Viewing writing as exploration means that you don't have to have it all worked out before you begin. We find just such a sentiment modeled by Augustine. Responding to a criticism of his book on free will, he wrote, 'I endeavor to be one of those who write because they have made some progress, and who, by means of writing, make further progress.' Similarly, the twentieth-century Catholic writer Flannery O'Connor admitted, 'I have to write to discover what I am doing. Like the old lady, I don't know so well what I think until I see what I say; then I have to say it over again.' Simply stated: we may write to learn what we think. "

― Richard Hughes Gibson , Charitable Writing: Cultivating Virtue Through Our Words