Talahardin writing strategy

#thought #seedling

All writing begins with a blank page. A blank page isn't intimidating when it is in a journal where I usually intend to fill a few pages and I know no one's going to read them. A blank page could be incredibly overwhelming when what is eventually written there has to be shared or published.

What I hope to gain from talahardin is support in different ways of writing. I want my talahardin to help me write not only traditional essays but also lyrical essays and poems. For this to happen, the talahardin has to be capable of providing materials for each kind of writing or at least make it easier.

Core writing strategy

Whatever the type of final writing product produced through the talahardin, it is born out of a core writing strategy: combining the talahardin with a regular writing practice.

The talahardin is meant to be partnered with a regular writing practice. The writing practice allows the talahardin to be populated with small chunks of writing artifacts (i.e., notes) of different species developed iteratively through time. These chunks of writing are then pieced together in or linked to several speculative outlines tracked in my index of speculative outlines, which are revised whenever new insight emerges.

Producing drafts through the talahardin

Essays

Bottom-top

  1. Take an existing speculative outline that is already mature (i.e., it has enough notes or information clustered around it).
  2. Write new information or notes for missing information, if necessary.
  3. Write an initial draft, following the structure of the outline.

Top-bottom

  1. Review existing notes, journal entries, or other information you've written on your topic.
  2. Write an outline.
  3. Attach existing notes, journal entries, and information into appropriate sections of your outline.
  4. Write new information or notes for missing information, if necessary.
  5. Write an initial draft, following the structure of the outline.

In the second approach, step 2 could precede step 1 to allow for a more free writing approach.

I notice that works written using a note-writing system tend to squeeze as many insight as possible into one publication. I notice this in Sonke Ahrens, who has a zettelkasten, but also James Clear (who I think has one). While he didn't use a zettelkasten-like note-writing system, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who relied a lot in indexes also wrote this way. I think it is easy to write insight-filled works if one has an abundance of insights captured in notes that accumulate through time.

References

Ahrens, S. (2017). How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking – for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.