Smashing the butterfly.

Writer Ann Patchett describes the idea she has for her next project as a beautiful, wild butterfly fluttering about her mind, a three dimensional miracle of color and movement she enjoys for as long as she can.

When it’s time to put pen to paper, she plucks the butterfly from her mind, smashes it onto her desk, and pins it down. What’s left is her book: a flat, one-dimensional, “dismantled, and poorly reassembled” version of her butterfly.

No one wants to smash the butterfly, but it’s the only way to turn an idea into something tangible.