Writing about writing


I now find myself stopping for minutes on end trying to come up with the right words or the right way of phrasing something. The joy that I once found in writing was sucked out of me.
...when I write my brain goes faster than I can write.


Suggestion: Sequence your the writing process into

  1. "brain dumping" - jot some ideas down on paper.
  2. free-writing (while glancing at your outline),
  3. "editing".

For longer pieces, the "jot some ideas down" might morph into "jot a rough outline".

I think that one of my strengths is in effective writing. This is something that doesn't have to be perfect.

Re-writing (not 'revising') is the main aspect of editing that we'll dwell on. Re-writing is an incremental process of

  1. Identifying some sentence / phrase / part that you want to improve,
  2. Generating 2-4 alternatives,
  3. Picking one.

Draft: 20-50% of your time on brain-dumping and quick-writing ; 50-80% of your time on 're-writing' and structure (paragraph / subsections with headers).

Writing to communicate

Heinrich von Kleist writes... about how *talking* helps him order his thoughts.

Writing can be something that helps you clarify your own thinking. But writing is also

When I think of writing, I think of communicating and how effective or ineffective it can be. When done right, it can inspire and change minds, but when done wrong, horrible things can happen.


!!

I have written, and I often receive A's, but that in part is not all due to myself, because I do have people peer editing my papers.

Professional writers do not go it alone either. They formalize this by having a person whose job is "editor"...

You can't do it for every e-mail or text you send, but for important pieces show some of your writing to other people and see how they receive it.

Formally, you can go to the library writing center to get feedback.