Philip Gerard, Chapter 2, "Finding an Original Subject"

This is a really good chapter for those of us who are just starting out in the genre of creative nonfiction. For one thing, I really took comfort in the short passage:

"The writer has to take raw data and somehow refine it toward meaning.
Sometimes the interest is obvious, in a general way; other times it is not
obvious to anyone, even the writer."

I guess I was sort of under the impression that good ideas just sort of flow to good writers. But I think Gerard makes it clear here (and in subsequent chapters) that we often set out to write something only to discover that we've got something entirely different--and that something can be difficult to pin down. This is good news for me!