when thinking and writing, many diffrences are so obviously exposed. not just any thinking or writing, but explority thinking and writing. now both of these share the common trait of exploring, but contrary to popular beleif writing and thinking are very different. The book points out that this exploring process is not like the exploring of Christopher Columbus or NASA, in fact i am to understand that there is no physical exploring being done at all! now at first I shared the same overwhelming sense of confusion and frustration that you are probably feeling now. if no one is moving, then how can there be exploring! needless to say, i was stumped. Then slowly but surely like pieces of an exploratory puzzle, things started to come together. Exploratory thinking can help a person prepare to write, it can help one organize one's thoughts about one's exploratory writing. it can also help you discover new ideas and thoughts (because your thinking) about what it is exactly you wish to write about. Now that i think about it, Christopher Columbus should have tried this! it would have been way cheaper and less people would have died. exploratory writing on the other hand is very different from exploratory thinking. in exploratory writing you've begun to put your exploratory thoughts on paper. you have embarked on a more professional level of exploring in which your thoughts can be read and reviewed. in exploratory writing your working out a way to organize all your thoughts and to make it appealing and relative to an audience. Edward Albee said "I write to find out what I'm talking about" and i bet he had to exploratory think for hours to come up with that.