Prose and Cons: A Writing Workflow

Writing processes are, to string in a cliche, much like snowflakes – no two are exactly the same. They are also subject to constant change as the writer, their content, or their situation evolves. Mine, however, has been quite stagnant. I mostly contribute this to simply knowing what works best for me, and having figured it out at a young age. It would be a lie to omit the part that stubbornness plays in the continuation of my now almost decade old process.

Simply, my process is broken down into five core steps: 1) Choosing (or being assigned) a topic; 2) Gathering and taking notes on pertinent articles; 3) Beginning to just write within said chosen topics, referencing back to quotes and notes taken from the articles; 4) Editing grammar and organization of the paper; and lastly 5) Polishing off the thesis, introductory, and conclusion paragraphs to properly reflect the content of the paper.

Controversially, I do not often begin with an argument. I know vaguely what path I would like to pursue, but I do not know clearly what point I firmly want to make until I make it. Until the ‘ah-ha!’ moment. After the ah-ha, I either find I have a lot of editing – adding and retracting – to do, or that I had mostly been within the realm of my idea all along and the editing is minimal. It is a rare day when my thesis is all but fully understood before I put fingers to keyboard.

You would not be remiss if you assumed, ‘this must be why she gets stumped!‘ but, you would still be wrong. My brain is never short on opinions or ideas. I have little issues remembering my information I have compiled, either. Overall, my brain is a likely the most reliable writing tool I have.

When, on the rare occasion I do get stuck, I refer back to my academic crutch – philosophy. There is not a topic in the world that an academic could not approach through at least one philosophical lens. Am I a world class philosopher? No. Do I understand all of the original works? In their original languages? Absolutely not. Do I often panic learn schools of thought that I want to bolster my essay? Of course. Do people always understand this approach? Do they always understand the constraints a student works within for both time and allotted page length with which I have to explain complex, dense philosophical areas of thought? No. Does this often backfire? Not as often as one may think, especially in undergraduate classes.

Approaching anthropology through philosophy is one of the most natural things in the world. Both rest on the naturality of human curiosity, the desire for answers and knowing. Philosophy – no matter how many thinkers thought different ways within the same area – provides a way through which a person can be specific. I am looking at this one specific aspect of this one specific person’s thoughts in this specific school of thought. Not everyone will appreciate that. They are, obviously, not my correct audience.

And frankly, writing is supposed to be geared toward what the self desires to produce. It is writing for an audience in which the writer can find themselves buckled under crushing weight of expectation. Yes, academia and publishing is nothing but expectation, though I prefer to think of it secondarily. At least I try to. I am learning more now in graduate school that others ideas of me determine my future almost as much as I do, and I cannot lie, that had me a bit on my knees at the end of the first semester.

My truest enemy is citation. My issue is simply that I do not want to stand on the shoulders of giants, I want to be the giant. And I do not fancy having to hunt around to see if my idea has already been had, even if just in the margin at the end of a fifty year old paper from another country. I do not love that when I write a sentence I know to be fact, I have to find a paper that proves said fact. The thing that slows me down the most is having to hunt down who said what. My brain remembers what they said, but it will be damned if it remembers exactly what article it was said in, or exactly how it was phrased to make hunting it down easier. Citation easily adds another hour or two onto a fifteen page paper, which could otherwise be written in about three total on a bad day.

To contradict my earlier self, I suppose my final area of struggle is coming up with ideas – original, special ideas and a firm way to approach them. Once I have one, I write with ease and (relative) flow. But coming up with a point is hard. I have many points and yet none at all. General areas of interest are much easier, but even then, I feel as though I get overwhelmed. There is an essence of perfectionism in all that I do. That if I do not write wonderfully, then it was a waste. Grades have done nothing to tamp down this form of anxiety, either. Neither has the need for them to be good in order to move up in higher education. There is a layer of insecurity – not imposter syndrome – that rests over me in a constant thin layer. That, because it is me, what I produce has to be good. And that if it is a completely original idea, there is a piece of vulnerability. That I can now be judged not just on execution, but idea, something so fundamentally to the self as their own thoughts, not just technique. Sometimes this works to my advantage and makes me edit and create very diligently, but sometimes it makes me put my laptop down and ignore the Google Doc for a day, two days until the confidence is back.

I suppose that part of my process needs its own editing. The part where I simply let my brain go, think thoughts, and not filter them through the categories of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ so early on. Because really, that is what mostly stops me from creating outside of assigned topics. Growing up within such harsh constraints of what we can and cannot do leads to a crippling sort of doubt when let free of those bounds. To trust your own ideas as opposed to those of others is not natural when you were never truly allowed independent thoughts up until a year or so ago. And that is what will make this entire course, and all of my professional life, a challenge. I strive to be up for it.