[something better here]: using brackets while drafting

Drafting (the part of writing when you're putting words on paper, whether it's the first time, or seventeenth) is really hard work. You're making SO many choices every minute - which word, which thought, who to cite, if you cite, if it's clear, what you mean - and it can be really overwhelming. If you add in a brain that has a few different trains of thought running at the same time, or perfectionism, or any other brain pattern/behavior/emotion that's the least bit distracting, and drafting can be even more overwhelming, if not nearly impossible feeling. 

And although academics talk a lot about how to make time for the writing, how to make space for it, how to schedule it - there is so much less discussion about how to actually write. So today, here's a tactic I use with a lot of clients: bracketing. 

Now, this isn't something I invented but it is something that I used (and still do use!) extensively when writing up new ideas (or revising old ones.) Basically, it's a way to capture thoughts that you have about the writing while you're writing so that you can keep going. 

For example, here is a paragraph in an early (draft 0 or 1) version of one of my dissertation chapters. Everything in ALL CAPS was something I needed to cite, expand on, or clarify, but I kept going so that I could see what I needed to change.

• While the stakes of human turned meme are clear (STAR WARS KID, NUMANUMA), the animal also faces risk here. The replicated image changes perception of breeds (in the case of the Persian) and separates the body of the animal from the representation of it. I DONT KNOW WHATEVER - what does it mean to be voiced by a human.

I used ALL CAPS to signal these changes, but I later switched to brackets ( {[ }] ) because they were easier to search for and replace. The important thing was what I was doing - signalling a place I wanted to come back to, capturing the important thought, and then going on so that I could stay in the world of the draft. If I stopped to look up the memes I wanted to cite, or figure out exactly what I wanted to stay, I would usually get distracted, start reading when I was supposed to be done with reading, feel absolutely frustrated and angry when I couldn't figure out what exactly my argument was. In short, I'd stop writing and do something else, instead of noting and then carrying on. 

Here are just some of the uses I've found for bracketing text while drafting:

• Making note of where to add citations

• Capturing thoughts like "is this clear enough" or "do I need more here"

• Leaving myself instructions like "come back and write a better transition once you finalize case studies" or "link this back to chapter 2 once you write it"

• Noting details I wanted to confirm, like publication year or author name

And the benefits weren't just limited to keeping in the flow of writing while drafting! Brackets also helped me:

• Turn some of these tasks (like "find citation" or "add quote from archive here") into the small steps I could put on a list and check off

• Ask better questions when readers gave me feedback, because I already knew which areas I worried might be unclear

• Note places where I would add other literature or sources - I have a tendency to overcite and bury my voice, so brackets helped me see where I wanted to add citations, and then if people said "This needs more support" I would have some good guesses about where to add. And if they DIDN'T say that, then I didn't spend a lot of time adding in citations and quotes that I just needed to take out.

Not all the thoughts we have while drafting are bad - but some of them can definitely take us out of the task of writing and into places where it's harder to get back in the flow. Hopefully using some brackets can help you stay with your thoughts AND stay in the writing! And if you have other uses for brackets - or other techniques that work in the same way, please share!

AcWriMo2020: draft on purpose

Most of the clients that come to me know how to do the later stages of drafting pretty well - taking a skeleton of ideas and expanding it into something more complete. But what is harder to wrap grasp is how to do something earlier in the process - how to write messy, write sloppy, write on purpose even when you aren’t quite sure what you want to say yet. I find that the earlier in the process you start to write, the more you can work with something concrete, instead of wrestling with it all in your head.

One of the most powerful tools in my writing arsenal is free-writing. Even after years (and honestly more than a few therapy sessions) digging in to why I feel anxious about writing, I've discovered that lowering the stakes helps me be much more productive. The more I focus on writing well, writing clearly, writing academically, the more I freeze up and don't write anything. But if I just commit to writing a sh*tty first draft, if the only thing I have to do is get words onto the page, then I feel much (but not totally) more comfortable with the whole endeavor. I used to be able to write very good first drafts of undergraduate, and even MA level papers - just a read through and they were ready. That isn't true of my PhD writing, and it isn't true of my professional writing. My first draft is usually one of four or five total drafts, with lots of feedback from other people along the way. So the first draft doesn't have to be 95% of the way there, just 20 or 25% of the way! 

But making that switch in my mind was different than actually teaching myself to write a sh*tty first draft. It was a skill I had to develop, to let myself write more freely without editing as I go, without judging the work as it develops. Here's where free-writing comes in. This looks one of two ways for me:

1) I open up a blank Google doc, Scrivner file or Word doc and just start typing. When I'm in this flow, I type stream of consciousness thoughts, usually starting with how much I hate writing and how bad I am at it and how it will never end and I'll be working on this stupid draft for the rest of my life. Eventually, even my brain tires of writing about that, and I switch to narrating the task I'm setting down to do:

Today I'm going to write about how this newspaper article from 1934 records the unsanctioned screening of amateur footage taken from near the JESSE JAMES set. This is important because this proves that people saw the footage of the accident on set, and that it really did contribute to the backlash against the film, despite the studio's assurances that it was a non-event.

I usually don't use this writing directly in my draft but it does help me clarify my plan for the day, limit the scope, and transition my brain from "kicking and screaming tantrum about the idea of writing" to "slightly more willing participant in the writing process." 

2) If I'm already feeling pretty warmed up, or if I've completed step 1), I move on to some of these writing prompt questions. Again, the text of these don't always make it through directly into the draft, but sometimes it does! But starting from these high-level, authorial reflection questions definitely helps me narrow down my contribution, instead of just narrating my research or my findings. 

• What is the most interesting thing about the research?

• What was my most unexpected finding?

• If I was teaching this source/study to an undergraduate, what context would they need to understand it?

• How are my ideas different from the scholars who have looked at this topic/phenomenon before me? How are they similar?

• Who will benefit from the research I've done?

• What was the most difficult question to answer? What was the easiest question?

• What Big Ideas in my field does this relate to?

• What made me decide on this topic in the first place? What's interesting to me about it even still?

• What questions do I still have about my work so far?

A pom or two answering these questions, and I'm usually ready to start working more formally on my writing: expanding my outline, filling in sentences, editing what I've previously written. But giving myself a chance to write in a low-stakes way, play with the ideas, and then move on to a first, or fifth, draft gives me a chance to get used to the physical action of typing, the headspace of writing, and sometimes even lets me tap into the fun and excitement of generating new ideas and putting them in a place where people can read them.