Comment Re:Ideas flow better when I write well to start wi (Score 1) 656
I would be wary of telling people who need to be able to write things for school or work to emulate professional writers. People who make a living writing not only write well, they tend to be able to write well quickly. When a pro revises, he is working far above the level of spelling and grammar. Those are automatic for him. He is working on structure, style, or, in the case of fiction, on even higher-level abstractions such as conflict and character.
Processes vary among writers; I can only talk about my own in any detail. I have been a technical writer for nearly two decades now. I tend to do between one and three revision passes for most pieces, and sometimes as few as none. I have always written generally correctly-spelled, grammatical first drafts, starting when I was in school. I was that kid you hated who wrote his term paper the night before it was due and got an A on it. In my professional life, some of my first drafts have been published because I was on a very tight deadline and simply didn't have time to do even a single revision. Those pieces were far from my best work, but the words were generally spelled right and the subjects and the verbs mostly agreed, so they weren't a complete professional embarrassment.
When I write, I think in sort of Platonic, ideal sentences that appear fully formed in my mind. They are already grammatical and correctly spelled, so the only really hard part is to transfer them to the word processor without making any errors. This requires no more than sustained attention to the task at hand. (If I don't pay enough attention, I do things like drop words, or misspell them by using the wrong hand to type a letter.) After I've finished, I may do a revision pass to improve the organization and style a bit (and catch the inevitable brain-to-keyboard misfires) before I call it a "first draft" and send it to the client. Additional revisions are mainly to implement changes requested by the client. Usually it takes a couple of these at most.
It is true that most people can eventually produce decent prose with enough revision. So the "don't worry about the spelling and grammar, fix it later" is a useful strategy for someone who needs to do the occasional bit of writing for school or work. But it is by nature not a technique that a professional would use; it is far too basic. I know that if I had to write that way, I'd be in some other line of work. The flip side of this, of course, is that the casual writer who doesn't know where to start probably shouldn't try to emulate full-time professional writers because his skills simply aren't pro-level. (Which is nothing to be ashamed of. All of us have more things we can't do at a professional level than things we can. I take my car to a mechanic and I leave the opera singing to others.)
The best advice I can give for someone using this technique is to pay attention to the mistakes you are correcting when you do your revisions. Take notes if necessary. The next time you have something to write, review what you learned try not to make the same mistakes again. Pay attention when you read, too. Read stuff like Harper's and The New Yorker and try to figure out what makes that Malcolm Gladwell piece on diapers so damn compelling. You can learn a lot just by paying attention to good writing. You won't just notice these things automatically until you get yourself in the habit. Over time, and with a lot of practice and some guidance from others, your writing will probably improve. It may take more or less time for you than for others, but it's worth it either way. Writing is a useful skill to have and is a competitive advantage in nearly any career.
Processes vary among writers; I can only talk about my own in any detail. I have been a technical writer for nearly two decades now. I tend to do between one and three revision passes for most pieces, and sometimes as few as none. I have always written generally correctly-spelled, grammatical first drafts, starting when I was in school. I was that kid you hated who wrote his term paper the night before it was due and got an A on it. In my professional life, some of my first drafts have been published because I was on a very tight deadline and simply didn't have time to do even a single revision. Those pieces were far from my best work, but the words were generally spelled right and the subjects and the verbs mostly agreed, so they weren't a complete professional embarrassment.
When I write, I think in sort of Platonic, ideal sentences that appear fully formed in my mind. They are already grammatical and correctly spelled, so the only really hard part is to transfer them to the word processor without making any errors. This requires no more than sustained attention to the task at hand. (If I don't pay enough attention, I do things like drop words, or misspell them by using the wrong hand to type a letter.) After I've finished, I may do a revision pass to improve the organization and style a bit (and catch the inevitable brain-to-keyboard misfires) before I call it a "first draft" and send it to the client. Additional revisions are mainly to implement changes requested by the client. Usually it takes a couple of these at most.
It is true that most people can eventually produce decent prose with enough revision. So the "don't worry about the spelling and grammar, fix it later" is a useful strategy for someone who needs to do the occasional bit of writing for school or work. But it is by nature not a technique that a professional would use; it is far too basic. I know that if I had to write that way, I'd be in some other line of work. The flip side of this, of course, is that the casual writer who doesn't know where to start probably shouldn't try to emulate full-time professional writers because his skills simply aren't pro-level. (Which is nothing to be ashamed of. All of us have more things we can't do at a professional level than things we can. I take my car to a mechanic and I leave the opera singing to others.)
The best advice I can give for someone using this technique is to pay attention to the mistakes you are correcting when you do your revisions. Take notes if necessary. The next time you have something to write, review what you learned try not to make the same mistakes again. Pay attention when you read, too. Read stuff like Harper's and The New Yorker and try to figure out what makes that Malcolm Gladwell piece on diapers so damn compelling. You can learn a lot just by paying attention to good writing. You won't just notice these things automatically until you get yourself in the habit. Over time, and with a lot of practice and some guidance from others, your writing will probably improve. It may take more or less time for you than for others, but it's worth it either way. Writing is a useful skill to have and is a competitive advantage in nearly any career.
