While studying content strategy at FH Joanneum, we, the students recently were called upon to reflect our approaches to writing. We were also asked to apply the method of Reflection in action, which is — put shortly — a technique of constantly observing yourself while doing something to deepen the understanding of your internal processes.
So this post is me writing about writing while watching myself write. Pretty meta.
Quite like my colleague Chris, who already shared his findings in this post (that also features a lot of links to further posts on the topic by more fellow students), I used to write a lot in earlier years. Over time the frequency started to lower, and the action was reduced to penning lyrics for music and the occasional travel log. My studies jump-started the activity pretty much again, as there is a project work to accomplish each semester, and a blog with regular entries is demanded.
At the moment I am also working on one of these posts, and while working on it, I am also writing this article, that will follow through my process of writing.
This is actually something I really like to do and I’m a much better in getting things done since this discovery: I love working on multiple things at the same time. Whenever you get stuck somewhere, you just jump to another thing you’re working on and continue where you left of there. Then, when returning to previous task, you have a fresh perspective on what you have and what you haven’t and go on. (Also this is a great technique to procrastinate in the most possible productive way, but that’s another story)
So let’s jump right in: the approach that seems to work the best for me — the only one that actually works — is what I call the “order out of chaos” or “the kids’ room approach”.
It works like this: you throw everything you got onto the floor (text editor) and then, before it’s time to go to bed (the deadline swings around the corner with a speed you never guessed it could gather), you start tidying up, you see what you have and assemble it into a logical structure and order, and put it into the cupboards (the post).
I’ll now walk you through the process:
It starts with the almost biggest task and obstacle to overcome: finding a topic. As we are invited to write posts that accompany the learnings and findings we gather along the course of our studies, it makes sense to find a topic that is rewarding to revisit and that can bring gains by readdressing it from my one’s own perspective.
Here are some of the more professional questions typical for that stage of the process:
What could be an original perspective?
Do I revisit it from the perspective of a student or a practitioner, or both? Even if I haven’t worked in the field in my profession?
And that’s mostly also the time when thoughts of the likes of this appear:
Why should I even write about it when there are hundreds of articles out there, written by people 10 times my expertise and twice my seniority?
(More or less) regardless of these, I collect a couple of topics that are valuable in terms of actuality, read a little into them and pretty quickly pick the one that feels best. The most promising, that I can relate to the most just by a gut feeling, the one that holds the most hope for finding anything worth writing about. It very much depends on the day.
The key to finding my personal approach is pretty much the core of the method: I just start to collect and to write. I start to write into a direction of an idea, and the longer I write, the clearer the path reveals itself.
First, I collect thoughts, quotes, key sentences or even paragraphs from articles and throw them onto the canvas of the empty doc.
While the material amasses, ideas for the structure, headings, possible titles start to emerge. In this stage, I’m all over the document: I add a sentence here, get an idea for further research there, go and do it, in the best case return with something valuable and put it where it fits the best at the moment.
It can be a lot of fun to work all over the place, but it can tilt into a feeling of losing orientation also pretty easy, leaving you without a sense of direction and a lot of loose ends.
Here a greatest-hits-list of thoughts in that phase:
WTF am I doing (here)?
I hate this way of working, can’t I do it in a proper, orderly way for once?
How do I ever get (something) out of this?
Is this going to work this time?
As you might imagine, it is best to take a break or even leave it for that day, at that point.
Coming back to it after some time, everything is looked at and pieces that make sense are grouped. This is often the moment when the scent of some sense can be sensed for the first time. An early glimpse of some order emerges. A faint light starts to appear at the end of the tunnel and it’s not a train. Confidence is starting to reassemble. Trust in a good outcome is restored.
Missing parts are written, rearrangements tried out, maybe some more research is done and a rather clear structure of the piece is emerging. From there on, the rest is a piece of delicious cake (if the deadline is not too close, breathing down your neck). Some more read-throughs, some fine-tuning, spell-checking, lay-outing, in-putting of visual material, and voila: a post is written.
This may sound like a rather messy and chaotic endeavor, and well, it is. And well, it works, at least for me.
Having read all the different and interesting approaches of my colleagues (that you can find in the link mentioned above), I’m eager to explore and try some of them out. Next time.
