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July 05, 2005
And now for something completely different
Having finished drafting & revisions on another section of the handbook, it's time for me to take care of a long-overdue project: getting out the prospectus for an edited volume that a publisher is interested in and that many colleagues have already finished their submissions to. I don't know how I get myself into these time-management jams. If it's not a death in the family, it's a major surgery or a big car wreck. I keep committing myself to projects with the assumption that no disasters will occur in my life, but I've had quite a run of that very item.
So now I've roped off space for getting this prospectus out—following my usual writing pattern:
- Prewriting. This can be a few days but is usually a few years. I dump stuff in files politely known as my commonplace book. And I suppose that's exactly what these files are, because I usually have little trouble retrieving and making sense of my prewriting.
- Avoidance. Having marked today as the first day of working on the prospectus, I've spent the entire day doing everything else. I've given myself a peel-off facial; I've pulled some weeds in the garden; I've done some laundry; gone cycling; watched the Tour; tinkered with iTunes. You name it, I've done it. Anything but write.
- Outlining. I use the outlining function in Word, which enables me to move things around and really think through the logic of my nascent argument. After dinner this evening I started that task. Once I've outlined, I can write like crazy.
- Drafting. I'll start fleshing out the outline, drawing stuff from my commonplace book and my brain (yeah, I do have one of those, too).
- Reviewing. The draft either has to rest awhile, or somebody else has to read it. In this case, I have a luckless coeditor whom I can outrun.
- Revising. Piece o' cake. Once I'm really plugged into audience, I can revise like a house afire.
Posted by senioritis at July 5, 2005 09:10 PM
Comments
Thanks for submitting this, Becky. I know that we all have similar processes, but it's really nice to see how others take on these bigger projects. I've often wanted to do a project based solely on the processes of prolific writers. Yea, I know it's been done, but not with any of us!
Posted by: Billie at July 6, 2005 01:02 AM
An interesting question. What would be revealed by studying the writing processes of rhetoricians? Self-awareness, surely. Could there be writers on the planet who are more attuned to how they write? What else, I wonder, would be different from any other group of writers?
And what I am keenly aware of is my biggest problem: no, not time management! My even worse problem is audience. I tend to preach to a very tiny choir. I'm quite sure of the value and virtue of my claims, and I've studied my topic so carefully that I can speak about it with great precision. The result is a first draft that is not only sanctimonious but also incomprehensible to anyone but specialists. So my revising can be pretty substantial, as I attune myself to legitimate alternative points of view and to the needs of a non-specialist audience.
Posted by: senioritis at July 6, 2005 06:32 AM
At least you can conceptualize that audience. I seem to want to write to everyone and noone, and therefore have NO IDEA how to say what I want to say.
Posted by: susansinclair at July 7, 2005 03:07 PM
I find myself writing to about 4 or 5 distinct audiences, all of whom know a lot more than I do about particular aspects of my subject, but none of whom know much about what the other 3 or 4 audiences know. (OK, perhaps a slight exaggeration.)
So... my 20-minute presentations end up being 30-page single-spaced papers.
Help!!
Posted by: Jon at July 8, 2005 10:32 AM