Blog 2

Theoretically speaking, I like Elbow’s cooking and growing ideas. At first they did not make much sense to me, but after I began to read further into his passages I could understand him more fully. I do not think I could go to such extremes as he suggests in his book, though (such as writing several pages to find just a few main points or including completely unrelated thoughts). They seem like a waste of time. Unless one is stuck, and I mean truly stuck, writing about what the people out the window are doing is not going to do you any favors. I think jotting down thoughts is a great idea, but I think it wastes energy to get completely off task. I make notes for myself all the time. Actually, beneath this paragraph are the lines, “Don’t write until you’re ready to write – could never be ready to write. but there are due dates. Not practical.” These are just notes for me to come back to later, but they’re on topic, they’re things I want to say, and they do not include anything about the neighbor’s dog, dinner tonight, or plans for the weekend. While I do think that it’s beneficial to get a good flow going and keep it spilling onto the page, I think it is important to stay close to the topic at hand. More than that just seems wasteful.

However, I do like his thoughts on mixing related ideas together physically before writing. I do not think I would take it as far as actually cutting my writing apart in order to piece it back together again in a different order, but, in a similar way, I find myself color-coding my notes in a Word document so I can see at a glance which quotes or topic ideas go together. This method does not place my notes side by side, but it organizes my thoughts enough for me to see what I want to say in a given section, and at the same time it allows me enough room to work with order and contextual support.

Note cards work too, but like his writing-then-pruning methods, they are simply too time consuming. It’s wonderfully convenient to see piles of carefully arranged note cards, but writing the information on the cards, labeling and ordering them accordingly, then rewriting the information into something presentable just seems like a waste, especially when the same result can be achieved without such arduous tasks.

And finally, as I alluded to above, I do not agree with his idea that you should not write until you are ready to write. There are many times when I’m not ready to write, but I do it anyway because if I wait until I’m ready, it might never get done. Due dates are a reality and I do not think there are many professors out there who would accept, “I don’t have my paper finished because I’m just not ready to write it yet. But don’t worry, I’m sure inspiration will come along one of these days,” as an excuse for why you did not have the assigned essay completed on time.

But hey, if he found something that works, good for him. Just because it does not sound appealing to me does not mean others won’t get use from it, and it certainly is an interesting perspective.