The Process

Another morning of incremental change and renewed awareness of the writing process. A few years ago, I was privileged to take a graduate level class, called "Seminar in the Composing Process," with Dr. Mary Lynch Kennedy. The core concept of the class, as its title suggests, is to understand writing as a process and to teach that process as a means of engaging students in the craft of writing.

Purposeful revision is often mentioned as key to that process although, in practice, the concept is often misunderstood by beginning writers as well as their teachers. Before home computers, the only difference between a rough draft and final version might've been the quality of the hand writing. With the increasing use of word processors, it's a quick run through "spell-check." That, and some internet plagerism.

Over the years, and I've seen a few, I've been told by everyone from ex-wives to frustrated employers that I can be maddeningly methodical (not to mention asininely alliterative) in my approach to just about any task. Or maybe it was mindlessly methodical, which can happen too. Nevertheless, experience tells me that a mindset embracing incremental change is far more conducive to craftsmanship, in any medium, than the slam-bang approach typically favored by impatient minds of whatever age, rank, or gender.

That's not to say that, along with blown deadlines, I haven't also suffered the occasional lapse in judgment. (See Bukowski's poem in my LJ profile.) What it does mean is that, through consistent effort and attention to detail, I'll hopefully bring a few projects to a reasonable level of craftsmanship.

Or maybe, with a completely unreasonable run of inspiration and luck, to the level of art...