I have a writing trick I developed some years ago. I have been using it ever since. It involves more work, but less wastefulness. Sort of an economy of reflective industrious laziness. It saves endless edits, re-writes and begin-again false starts.
When I was doing my doctoral research, there were a thousand design decisions necessary to refine my (self-defined) research ambit. Not having a willing supervisor always available to guide what had not been done before, I began a document posing supervision questions that were then answered, by me, for later confirmation.
This meta-reflective process meant I could proceed on the best course available, which inevitably led to the next decision point in refinement. In the imagery of Robert Frost; knowing ‘how way leads on to way’, while also being able to return to the roads not taken.
That parallel reflective document ran to an equal number of pages to the dissertation submitted. What remained unseen was the twenty possible alternative thesis versions, available and potentially written (for different disciplines) that were all distinct and equally valid – and now only exist in parallel universes.
This is one praxis I brought across into the writing of apithology texts – where once the purpose, chapter précis, and structural outlines are done, I open an additional ‘Chapter Choicing’ placeholder in the same format. This is more than a ‘commonplace book’ because it records the options at each decision point in the writing, the logic of the deciding, and the decision path selected. While intuition, heart-space and flow might ignore all this, when the question comes up again, I can revisit the earlier logic (as recorded).
In Arthur Koestler’s ‘The Act of Creation’ (1964) he describes how the release of explosive tension provides a forward momentum, rather than an ‘escape from anxiety’. In writing within a generativist ontology, there is not one grand quest, but many stepping stones and each must be successfully resolved to link to become one journey. This is not a series of writing compromises, but is instead utilisation creatively of ‘bisociative surprise’.
For the new inquiry occurring, into the writing of the next apithology text, I will be using the Chapter Choicing analogy. This will record the choice points that shape each creative turn in the ‘writing into being’ of this already known but ‘as-yet unmanifest’ work. For those who want to follow this unfolding, you can engage here: The Everything of Apithology (Link)
Stay with these reflections, they will become more and more interesting as the text (and I) fulfil the potential of this exploration.
This Choicing: The outcome of each choicing illuminates the pathway of becoming.
willvarey