I started my exploratory essay by thinking about the person that I wanted to interview. I had some ideas of what he did from a conversation I had with someone who used to work with him. From those ideas I got about what he did, I started to think about what he might do from day to day. I separately wrote down all of the questions I could think of that I would possibly ask him, and then I wrote down what I thought might be some of his answers. I simply recorded all of my thoughts, so that I could organize them later.
I ran into trouble while writing my paper, because I was afraid the structure and content of my paper was not in keeping with the assignment. I sent my professor an email stating my concerns and asking for feedback. Once I got an answer from my teacher, I was able to continue.
I needed to consolidate my queries and focus on a couple of big questions instead of several smaller ones. I reformatted my paper and changed some of my paragraphs to fit my new understanding of the assignment. Once I was finished, I re-read what I had written and went to bed.
The next morning I read my paper and thought about whether what I had written had hit the point or not. I did a little more editing and then my paper was finished.