If a 'writer's sketchbook' is to be for practice, as an artist's is, then perhaps that suggests why the private blog seemed to have been a new possibility. A writer like Thoreau did achieve a kind of practice in his journal, I think. And the resolutely private status of most of it meant that its writing could be perfected on terms appropriate to a practice, without interference from external goals and purposes inevitably attaching to publication as then institutionalized. But it would be different still, and arguably at least as true to what writing is, for a 'sketchbook' writing practice to exploit universal, instantaneous publication.

A writer's equivalent to the sketchbook: Thoreau's journal?

'The function of the work of art is to lead us from the work to the process of creation which it contains.'

Notable Doorways

'To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun.'

'The lonely individual must then seek to regain trust in humanity from "a place of utter silence" and an acute awareness of how easily the fiction can break down.'

'I have no plan B. I've set this up so that my entire life is based on this, and if this fails, I have nothing else. No career options. No life options.'

Rain.

Now it's just sitting around getting in the way.