This process has 13 procedures but I’m not going to explain them all. They are all things you may want to consider during the writing process, from writing down your first thoughts and considering your prejudices to varying the time you are writing about or varying the audience.
During the writing you should try to lose sight, temporarily, of your topic. One of the best times to use this approach is when you are writing about a topic that bores you silly. After you follow one of the procedures, you need to do the hard part, namely: Remember the original assignment and start revising what you ended up with to make it fit. He puts it this way:
"For in the voyage home, obviously enough, you are engaged in the process of revising. You have used your creative mentality to generate lots of examples and ideas and the makings of ideas, and now you need to use your critical mentality to shape a coherent draft out of this raw writing."
This process, he admits, can leave the writer with quite a mess and much of it will have to be destroyed. Will it always work? No. Is it worth a try? Definitely.
I have never tried this approach, at least not under this name, but I bet he is right that it would work at least some of the time. Next time I get stuck, I am going to give it a try.
I'd encourage you to try most of these processes. Elbow is indeed wise in imparting these excellent suggestions. This book contains some of the best writing advice I have read in years.
Article comments
1 - Robert
In the early stages of trying to keep my inner editor at bay during the initial draft, I shifted my email composition to first thing in the morning. It gets me in the habit of writing freely, and that habit carries over to my writing when I finally buckle down to work.
2 - Scott Butki
excellent solution. I have found - and i talk about it here - that some of the best times to write are early in the morning or late at nite. it's as if the inner editor goes to sleep.