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A post that's actually about writing! By: Matthew Patterson on 10/18/2001; 7:47 PM I just tried using an odd trick, and I wanted to know if anyone had done it and found it helpful. So here's the thing. I have this paper I'm doing tonight. The point of it is to make a concise, logical argument about one aspect of a bunch of philosophy we've read. (The details aren't important, this is about writing process.) I found that it helps me to write in BBEdit so that I can't get a sense of how long the thing actually is in relation to a piece of paper. I often have the concern that I ramble on too long, and that sometimes leads me to delete stuff for space that I later wish I'd kept. This way I can't see that as I'm writing, so I can make the argument cleanly and naturally. Does anyone else have this problem and find this solution helpful? _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
RE: A post that's actually about writing! By: Richard Davidson on 10/18/2001; 8:40 PM I find it very helpful not to pay attention to any of that stuff. If I ramble on too long, so be it. God help the attentive reader, or useless listener, as my words spill upon the pavement like rude salt. Make it a point that whenever you are doing something you care about, to lose touch with all other aspects of the universe. Reach deep within yourself, and forget everything you know, and for God's sake, keep on typing! If you have to kill entire dead civilizations all over again, that's the price innocent people have to pay for your art. To summarize, NEVER, I repeat NEVER pay any attention at all to what you are doing, and you will go far. That's my advice, and I pity anyone who doesn't heed it.
RE: A post that's actually about writing! By: Matthew Patterson on 10/18/2001; 10:04 PM On the other hand, there's something to be said for brevity. I mean, there's no point in writing The Nichomachean Ethics all over again if all you mean to say is, "Some people can afford to lose more money than others, therefore if a person commits an offense for which they can be fined their fine ought to be a proportion of their income rather than a fixed amount." (Let us disregard the fact that the paper I just wrote took two and 2/5 pages to say that.) (Edit: Oops, forgot that Unreason threads differently from a lot of places. That'll teach me to hit the "reply" button, wander off and do something else, then come back, wipe the subject line, and type the message. ^_^)
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