What aspects of writing do I especially dislike?
My first reaction to this question is that there isn't anything particularly that I dislike about writing… That is to say that I don't find writing to be something that makes me feel bad, but if I had to say the thing that is "egregious" about writing I guess it would be the fact that your brain really has to be engaged when you write. Particularly me, I would guess.
If you will allow my educational psychology geek personality to take over for a minute … It would seem that my prefrontal cortex is really working quite hard when I write -- In the sort of sense that Daniel Kahneman is talking about in "Thinking Fast and Slow." The time when I'm writing is one of those times when all of those tendencies toward perfectionism seem to gather up steam and drop themselves in on me.
Of course, it doesn't help that I can't particularly type, and though I'm currently using voice recognition software – which is not 100% accurate – the process of writing with your fingers and the process of writing with your voice really do seem quite different for me. I'm not sure how other people are, but the flow of thoughts and … and I guess we are back to the idea of perfectionism. When I speak to sentence, it's not the same as composing a sentence and thinking of how each letter must be struck from the keyboard. I suppose a real typist doesn't think that way when they are typing?
Thinking about the question again.
Writing is slow [Kahneman's system 2]. Writing requires patience. Writing requires revision and editing. These are things that can get your prefrontal cortex involved and expend real biological energy. Ultimately, writing is often tiring. Looking back on your errors and imperfections can be humiliating.
Patricia Goodson's advice to "write fast and edit slow" is not exactly something that I've practiced in the past. It's my intent to make an effort to do just that.
My first reaction to this question is that there isn't anything particularly that I dislike about writing… That is to say that I don't find writing to be something that makes me feel bad, but if I had to say the thing that is "egregious" about writing I guess it would be the fact that your brain really has to be engaged when you write. Particularly me, I would guess.
If you will allow my educational psychology geek personality to take over for a minute … It would seem that my prefrontal cortex is really working quite hard when I write -- In the sort of sense that Daniel Kahneman is talking about in "Thinking Fast and Slow." The time when I'm writing is one of those times when all of those tendencies toward perfectionism seem to gather up steam and drop themselves in on me.
Of course, it doesn't help that I can't particularly type, and though I'm currently using voice recognition software – which is not 100% accurate – the process of writing with your fingers and the process of writing with your voice really do seem quite different for me. I'm not sure how other people are, but the flow of thoughts and … and I guess we are back to the idea of perfectionism. When I speak to sentence, it's not the same as composing a sentence and thinking of how each letter must be struck from the keyboard. I suppose a real typist doesn't think that way when they are typing?
Thinking about the question again.
Writing is slow [Kahneman's system 2]. Writing requires patience. Writing requires revision and editing. These are things that can get your prefrontal cortex involved and expend real biological energy. Ultimately, writing is often tiring. Looking back on your errors and imperfections can be humiliating.
Patricia Goodson's advice to "write fast and edit slow" is not exactly something that I've practiced in the past. It's my intent to make an effort to do just that.
No comments:
Post a Comment