This paper discusses the relation between biography and philosophy under the aspect of the relation between Wittgenstein's "nature of writing" on the one hand and the nature of his philosophical investigation(s), as it is described in the preface to his PI, on the other. For the discussion of Wittgenstein's writing, I will draw heavily on Hanspeter Ortner's classification of "writing strategies" (Schreiben und Denken, Niemeyer 2000). I will argue against Ortner that Wittgenstein is a "syncretistic" rather than a "puzzle-writer". From there, I will try to show that it is highly significant that Wittgenstein's PI not only has a syncretistic origin, but also a syncretistic form - in the language of the PI preface: the album-form. Finally, I will attempt establishing and explicating an intimate connection between this album-form of the PI and its philosophy, including the nature of its philosophical investigation. I will make the point that the PI - despite their syncretistic origin - needn't have become a syncretistic work / album, but that this is the result of a conscious choice by Wittgenstein, and that we have to consider this result as highly significant. My paper is thus an argument for the position that there is an intimate and important relation between the PI's method and content on the one hand and its form and origin in Wittgenstein's nature of writing on the other hand.