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Friday, January 1, 2010

Fluent Writing

I'd like to be able to write fluently the way I can sometimes talk fluently. In other words, produce complete sentences continuously on the first try, writing pretty much at the pace of medium-slow typing. I can do it in blogging, but more rarely in scholarly writing. I think the culture of revision means that we have trained ourselves not to write so fluently: after all, we can always go back and rewrite it. I'm thinking about trying to develop that capacity of fluency. I did it this morning, finishing the preface to the new modernism book fairly quickly.

Here the key might be to notice when I'm doing it and trying to remember what it feels like.

4 comments:

Vance Maverick said...

Do you ever write on paper?

Jonathan said...

Yes. I like writing without the computer with fountain pen on good quality paper. I wish I could do so "fluently" but I type faster than I write by hand.

Vance Maverick said...

I don't do it much; but when I do, I find it easier to discipline myself to plan whole sentences without crossing out.

Andrew Shields said...

This is related to the complete-sentence game, isn't it?