🚀 go-pugleaf

In a message #4543731 Fred Welden says:

"What you want
to do, in my arrogant opinion, is to splat down what you think you want
to say on the page as close to all-at-once as you can manage.  Then go
back and read it carefully to see if anything seems to contradict the
sense of what you were trying to say, or to lead off to undesireable
tangents, and fix those things by splatting down something on top of
them and then repeating the review process."

In _my_ arrogant opinion, what a one is better off doing is learning to
write clearly the first time.  Then you don't have to rewrite half as much.
I believe a writer can learn his tools (words, grammar, etc.) well enough
to write clearly out of habit.  One time-saving habit is reviewing the
meaning of each sentence as it is written--then one can rewrite the sentence
on the spot and in context of the thoughts that produced it.  For me this is
such an ingrained habit that it directs my sentences as I write them.

I like the analogy of the Zen painter.  As a novice the painter will study
strokes of the brush and uses of paint.  After his control of the brush
becomes a nearly unconscious response to desire, the painter can produce
beautiful work in one sitting without corrections.

I think we can learn something from both your approach and the one you were
commenting on.
--
Alan Barclay


alan_barclay@mindlink.bc.ca