Susan Orlean on Writing, Ideas and Storytelling

“I write about stories because I want to learn about them. In the process of learning you would really hope that what you learn throws you off from where you started… I start w a question, whatever it may be, and the more I learn, the more I realize, wow, that wasn’t the question at all. That may have been why I got into the story but, in fact, it’s going off on this entirely different direction. And that’s where I feel that I’m really doing the right job as a writer, which is I’m letting the story take me where it’s supposed to go.”