This happens within a sentence too. I'll start a sentence, then go somewhere else and tack something on to another sentence. Then, considering the start of the sentence to be a trivial corollary of the thing I just tacked on, I'll get right to work on the subordinate clause. Fortunately, the problem bottoms out here; I don't start writing a word and then go running off to write another word somewhere else.
I bring this up by way of introduction to this sentence I found just now in a book chapter, lying at the end of a paragraph like a gnawed bone:
Thanks a lot, prior self.
(1) Thu Oct 19 2006 20:55 The Perfect Powerpoint Slide:
If you've worked with me in any professional capacity you know that I have a habit of not finishing sentences when I write. I'll get an idea and skip ahead in the paragraph to jot it down. Sometimes I never come back to the sentence I was originally working on.
If we , and , then when