Writing for me is a closed loop, a Mobius strip or perhaps an ocean.

The flow of synapse and nerve impulse, interrupted briefly by the bits and bytes of keystrokes, nudges words to the screen. Like a great out-flowing tide, my optical nerve sucks the words up again and delivers them to my brain for further churning.  Ideas get trapped like junk revolving interminably in the great Pacific gyre.

In this model, an essay is an assemblage of flotsam and jetsam entangled in a drift net, then hauled aboard a vessel flying independent colors, or perhaps, the skull and crossbones.