my writing process

I am revising a draft of an article for an edited collection and using my typical writing process. In Word, I did a brain puke (Calvin Trillin’s fabulous phrase), which is basically a directed freewrite where I took the proposal I had written for the article and added every detail, example, source note, etc. that I wanted to mention for each subtopic I outlined in the proposal. I next spent a few writing sessions fleshing out what I wanted to say, adding examples and referring to sources, until my article was about as long as I expected the finished piece to be (about 20-25 pages).

After ignoring the draft for a few days, I went back to it and printed it out. I read the hard copy, writing marginal notes about what to add, rephrase, delete, etc., and most importantly, outlining what I had said. From the outline, I determined that I needed to restructure the article, which is what I worked on today.

This morning, the first thing I did was make the changes in the Word file to the structure of the article. Once I did that, I couldn’t make the paragraph-level changes I had noted on the hard copy in a straightforward way because the hard copy and the electronic copy presented things in different orders. Word’s “find” feature came to the rescue. Since I hadn’t changed paragraphs themselves (for the most part), all I had to do was open the “find” box, type in the first few words of the paragraph I wanted to work on, and then click “find next” to locate the paragraph I wanted. I worked through all the revision notes I had made on the hard copy.

Tomorrow, I will read the entire draft on my computer screen and make changes to the electronic file as I read. The next day, I will print out another hard copy of the draft and annotate and outline it and then repeat the process I used today (making the changes to the electronic copy, using “find” as necessary). I will also draft the introduction. Then, I will have T read the draft and make comments, which will take a few days. Finally, I’ll read his comments and make some changes, print out another hard copy to annotate, make those changes, and be done.

This is the basic writing process I use for all writing projects:

1. puke/freewrite
2. draft at computer
3. annotate and outline hard copy
4. revise at computer
5. annotate and outline hard copy
6. revise/edit at computer
7. give to reader(s)
8. revise at computer
9. annotate hard copy
10. revise/edit at computer.

I like to be able to put the draft aside and not think about it between steps 2 and 3, between steps 4 and 5, and during step 7, but when I’m writing something at the last minute, taking a short break at those points to do something else, like work out or have a conversation about something completely unrelated to the topic I’m writing about, gives me the space I need to come back to the writing project with some objectivity. For something short—under five pages—I can easily fit the entire process, with breaks, into a day.

One other thing I should mention is that I almost never write the introduction until I get to step 6. The introduction is usually the most difficult part for me to write, and it’s easier for me to write a good introduction after I know what I’m actually introducing. I’ll sometimes pull an anecdote from the body of the draft and move it up to the beginning and make that part of the introduction, or once I’ve drafted a conclusion, I’ll sometimes write an intro to reflect the conclusion.

tags: composition  me  writing  

links: del.icio.us    technorati