Collage approach to writing

A collage approach to writing is when you take individual pieces of text taken from different contexts and bring them together into a new artifact, where they take on a new meaning in a new context.

This approach to writing is sometimes a reflection of the writer’s approach to living—a way of life that is sincerely curious to a lot of things with which paying careful attention is necessitated. This paying attention is so noticeable from Austin Kleon, Henry David Thoreau, and Craig Mod, and this collage approach to writing is very noticeable from Kleon and Thoreau. Kleon's blog posts are filled with patches of quotes and photos, which are put together a little haphazardly with loose transitions. On the other hand, Thoreau’s books and lectures were taken out of journal entries—some of his words from his journals were taken as is. He insists on treating words or trains of thought like wild seeds and letting them grow organically in their natural environment.

One can argue that talahardin too is a collage way to write. It is designed to develop individual lego pieces for writing that one can put together into publishable artifacts. It is a little different though from say the free-flowing collage writing of Michel de Montaigne. However, this practice of creating individual pieces of text to use for future writing is agnostic to how those pieces are used. One can use them to create a structured artifact or put them together in a topsy-turvy manner that looks like a collage. What the system does is to keep track of these pieces and to develop them in a way that doesn't overwhelm the mind.