re: slow writer (with trophy)

Subject: re: slow writer (with trophy)
From: "diotima" <diotima -at- myway -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2005 22:04:24 -0500 (EST)



regarding my acceleration ned wrote: Uh, Ye-ah!? It is called adrenaline...



i respond: well, no, actually. i mean of course there is adrenaline, but to imply that that is the cause of the progressive acceleration during my writing process is to put the cart before the horse. what i described here really feels key:



"but then...i can see it. i see how it's all going to come together, i see beyond my nose and all the way down the street. the text to come is so obvious, it simply falls out of what i?ve already written."



of course adrenaline becomes a part of this, particularly as i become increasingly menaced by a deadline, but the image i have is that i plod forward little by little until i reach a point where what i've written suddenly begins to tell me exactly where to go next, and further all the way through to the end. it's like suddenly the entire text appears in my brain and all i have to do is "dictate" it to my fingertips. i hurry because of the deadline, because of the adrenaline, because it is thrilling (evanescent thoughts of "i'm a genius!"), and because of the possibility that this text in my brain might disappear before i can get it all down.



ned wrote : PRAISE??



now hold on. i don't mean to imply that managers have bowed down before me, that my home or cubicle is adorned with trophies of the naked TW striking an inspired and representative pose. "praise" in the average tech writer's life seems to me to be something very muted, when even it does occur. and in my experience, that praise, when it comes, is usually in reference to what the document has solved or accomplished rather than any recognition of the document?s inherent clarity, beauty, or lack of errors. i don't normally hear, "that?s a great document," but i might hear, "that document made training easier and pretty much eliminated calls to tech support." more often than not, however, it seems that it's up to me to point those things out. during a review, for instance.



my academic writing, on the other hand, has fairly regularly drawn praise, sometimes to an embarrassing degree.



-diotima









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