A tabula rasa – focusing the mind before writing
I’ll take good ideas for an article from anywhere, even from a piece of spam. Below is an extracted quote from just such a spam comment:
I was interested to find out how you center yourself and clear your mind before writing. I have had a tough time clearing my mind in getting my ideas out. I truly do take pleasure in writing however it just seems like the first 10 to 15 minutes are generally wasted just trying to figure out how to begin. Any suggestions or tips?
I’ve already written an article here describing my normal process for writing an article (or a game supplement, or an adventure) – One word at a time: How I (usually) write a Blog Post – but this early phase of the process got a little skimmed over, from memory, so I thought it worth focusing in on how I get started.
Clearing your mind
I’ve heard the advice to clear your mind before you start writing any number of times from different sources over the years. I vehemently disagree with it – at least up to a point.
Emptying your mind of distractions and mundane concerns is fine. You can’t write effectively if you are thinking about next weekend’s barbecue or your bank balance or your shopping list or whatever.
But one of the most difficult problems to face is that of the empty page, pristine and waiting, or it’s modern analogue, the empty screen. That’s an open invitation to writer’s block, which is already more than pervasive enough. I spent quite a lot of time in the first part of the Breaking Through Writer’s Block series dealing with it. And a blank mind is essentially a blank page.
Replacing mundane thoughts with relevant content
I don’t try and clear my mind at all. Instead, I focus on replacing those mundane distractions with relevant thoughts, then structure those into an outline of the article.
What is the subject?
The first step is to identify the subject, something that I try to do in the (draft) title of the article. I stockpile article ideas against future need, I have multiple series on the go at any given time, and I’m always alert for new things to write about; between them, I have no problem coming up with something to write about.
More constraining is the idea selection process. I try not to have too many “active” series at the same time – not everyone will be interested in every article that you write, and it’s good policy to try and vary the subject matter so that you have reasonable hope that if one article doesn’t interest a reader, the next will. This also helps to keep you from getting stuck in a rut as a writer. So if I already have a multi-part article on the go, I’ll try to avoid starting a second one. It doesn’t always work that way, but most of the time it does.
The second criterion to be applied is available time. There are some articles that I have started and would love to write – heck, even series – that have simply had to be set aside because I physically don’t have the time. Things were much simpler back when I was healthy, and could work for 6, 8, 12, or even 16 hours at a stretch, day in, day out. It was not abnormal for me to spend 12 hours straight prepping for the weekend’s game session – from, say, 6PM Friday Night through to 6AM Saturday Morning. These days, I can work – with regular breaks – for somewhere between two and four hours a day. After an hour or so’s rest, I can sometimes do that a second time in the same day, especially if one of the two sessions is significantly shorter. On rare occasions, I might even be able to manage a third two-hour writing session. Subtracted from that available time is all the site admin that I have to do, and the game prep for my next session, and any shopping, cleaning, cooking and other chores, and any time spent reading other websites.
I have a reasonably well-established routine. Monday, I write for CM. Tuesday, I work with my co-GM on the Adventurer’s Club campaign. Wednesday I do chores that can be dealt with once a week or less. Thursday, I write for CM. Friday, I work on whatever game is coming up next – unless it’s pulp, in which case I can take Friday off and recuperate. Saturday I either game or write for CM or relax, in that order of priority. Sunday, I recuperate (if I’ve co-GM’d pulp the previous day) or write for CM. If I already have articles ready to go (sometimes I do, sometimes not), I can devote that time to writing something else or reading e-books, or to any chores I didn’t get finished. Monday starts the cycle over.
This is not all that different to someone working full time and writing in their spare time, when you add up the hours. Fortunately, I’m fairly prolific – I write an average of 1000 words an hour, and can hit 4000 wph when in full flight, thanks to the techniques described in the article I referred to earlier.
What is the message?
This is essentially a synopsis of what I want the article to say about the subject. It’s usually something I decide at the same time as I select the subject – I’m not as good at deciding “right, I want to write an article about X – what can I say about it?”.
Research
What do I know about the subject, and what do I need to know in order to write the article? What have other people written? About half the time, I need to hit Google or Wikipedia for some reference material.
What have I already written on the subject? I usually have to search the blogdex or visit CM’s archives.
What does someone who knows nothing about the subject need to know before they can understand what I have to say? More Web pages.
I’ll keep all these pages open in my browser as I write, so that I can extract information or cross-link to other relevant articles on the subject.
Discussion
I try to imagine the article as a discussion or dialogue with another GM – as a conversation. I want to get my point across, or explain my process for doing something. What are the key points that I have to make along the way? What are the individual steps that I have to perform? These form the skeletal outline of the article, the list of headings and subheadings and – sometimes – sub-subheadings, so I start by listing them. It’s really rare for me not put these in writing under the draft title.
I write in a text document and then copy and paste the text into CM’s CMS for final editing and publication. And I’ll normally use a separate document for each article or series. I find that to be a lot easier than writing directly to the built-in editor. When I list the headings and subheadings, I’ll indent them to start outline the article’s structure.
I note that I neglected to offer an example of doing so when I described this part of the process in that earlier article, I’m not sure why. So here’s the one for this article:
A tabula rasa – clearing the mind before writing [draft title]
Illustration [empty line at the moment]
Introduction
Clearing Your Mind
Replacing mundane thoughts with relevant content
What is the subject?
What is the message?
Research
Discussion
Logical Structure
Introduction & Conclusion
A focused mind (article conclusion)
Logical Structure
Once I have the initial structure down “on paper”, I’ll think about the logic of the article. Conversations are all well and good, but sometimes they veer erratically, and sometimes you get ahead of yourself and have to backtrack. There are also often fringe issues to discuss, or alternatives. It’s useful to revise and tinker with the first draft of the planned structure that makes sure things are presented in reasonably logical sequence.
A side-benefit that helps me greatly is that such a logical breakdown of the article means that it is much easier to resume writing it after setting it aside for a couple of hours, a couple of days, or even a couple of weeks. Longer than that and you are asking for trouble interpreting your outline, though. Things that seemed obvious at the time may be completely mystifying if too much time has passed.
Introduction & Conclusion
The last things that I think about before I start writing are “How am I going to introduce the article? How am I going to end it?” These are draft ideas that don’t get written down, just kept in mind – though if I know there’s going to be a lengthy writing process, I may make notes on the conclusion. These never survive the writing process unchanged, so there isn’t a lot of point to extensive efforts.
A focused mind
Each of these items crowds out a mundane distraction. There is no mind-clearing involved. Instead, you start writing the article and gradually focus in on the writing process. By the time I’ve reached the last step listed above, my mind is fully engaged on the article, and I’m ready to write at maximum efficiency. And, since I’m then ready to write, it’s time to stop writing this article!
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August 2nd, 2014 at 3:00 pm
[…] A tabula rasa – focusing the mind before writing […]