I’m continuing to examine how I write as a path to getting better at it. Today, I’m looking at my focus on deliverables as a driving force.
Producing deliverables is what I know (How better thinking about deliverables leads to better knowledge work results). I’m now wondering about the limitations of that bias. While working backwards is a fine strategy it can get in the way of smarter ways of working.
One way that I get blog posts finished is simply to decide that it’s past time to write one. At that point, more often than not, I will start a new bullet point in my daily note, note the time, and start freewriting about what’s on my mind that might be transformed into a blog post. This post started with asking myself whether I might try “some continuation of reverse engineering my writing process”. After two hundred words or so, I came up with the first version of the sentence that opened this paragraph.
At some point, if things are moving along, I will carve out my notes from my daily note and transfer them to a new individual note (a simple task courtesy of a plugin in Obsidian, my current writing environment of choice). I’ll continue to freewrite there. If I’m lucky or if things are flowing well, I’ll find myself to a lede and the beginnings of an overall flow. If not, I will set things aside and do something else for a while.
I’m trying to capture the essential messiness of this practice. That’s mostly for my own benefit as I hope to gradually build a better one, It’s also to acknowledge the realities of creative work. I feel that too many of the accounts I’ve seen over the years mask this messiness to everyone’s detriment. There are the occasional comic moments of crumpled sheets of paper tossed into or near wastebaskets, but they conceal as much as they reveal. Bless Anne Lamott for encouraging “shitty first drafts”. But she’s less forthcoming about how many drafts might follow..
I should note that my thinking here is about how I generate a deliverable more from a desire to get something done and less from having a particular thing to say. I essentially create an assignment for myself and work to finish the assignment. I work through the process until I find my way to a point. Sometimes that happens quickly and smoothly. Other times, things might need to cook for a while.
At some point, a draft will cross the threshold of “good enough”. Along the way, I will tweak things from elements of wording and phrasing to overall flow. I’m long past seeking perfection. I don’t know that I ever fell prey to that temptation. That’s the upside of thinking in terms of deliverables. The goal is “done.”
The downside is that I haven’t given enough attention to the potential benefits of system and process. I’ve been successful enough with my hacking approach that it’s taken a long time to turn my attention to the opportunities in more discipline.