More on writing...

In the course of writing this grant, I was wondering about why it's so much harder to write about an idea than to talk about it.  I think it's because conversation is just so easy to manipulate by glossing over things and eluding direct questions.  I think back on issues that people bring up in conversation, and it's amazing how often one just completely forgets about it and moves on.  Sometimes its as simple as just... not saying anything for a while until everyone just moves one somehow.  But when you write, there's nowhere to hide a lazy argument or a dangling piece of logic.  It's all out there in the open, and it (ideally) has to make sense.  No wonder it's so hard to write this stuff.