Monday, March 07, 2005

Back To The Notebook

Writing produces a thrill. In my notebook, various spoken or email dialogues woven with pages, thoughts, etc. written in the notebook over coffee or beer point me toward a subject or a loosely-formed rambling. Typing said notes into pages, many times thinking of more words, sentences, paragraphs to add. Printing off the page and going through it with a red pen, adding more, deleting some, figuring out the order/outline of the piece. Repeating this process however many times it takes, adding the latest revision onto the stack of revisions that are clipped together - the stack is sometimes used to refer to earlier drafts for wordings, but mostly used so when you're all done you have a visual reminder of your effort. Think of a title. Have some semblence of a draft that may or may not be complete. Read it aloud. Reword or rewrite words, sentences, paragraphs that don't sound correct or have awkward rhythms. Repeat this process as many times as it takes until the piece is complete. Run spell check, eliminate any double spaces. Print, write DONE at the top. Smile or smirk.