In my last post, Rebecca Leigh talked about the physical way you write — pen and paper vs. computer. Her main point was that we should do it the way it works for us and not get all worried about how we should do it.

There is another big should in the writing world, especially in schools (which have a huge influence on most of us) — that we should write an outline first.

OMG. I can’t write that way. How in heaven’s name could I write an outline?! I don’t know what I’m going to say yet?

Nope, for me, I need to write first. I’ve recently learned of the term “freewriting” and that felt so liberating. It’s what I’ve been doing all along and there is a name for it.

Once I’ve got a draft (usually what Anne Lamott would call a “shitty first draft”), I can then extract an outline, which might be helpful in structuring the next draft, particularly if we’re talking about a long piece of writing like a journal article or a dissertation. But outline first?! I can’t do it.

I used to give my students permission not to write an outline. Now I’m giving it to you.

And in case you’re thinking “No wonder she isn’t an academic anymore!” I will refer you to 2 things I’ve read recently from folks who also write this way. (And that Anne Lamott book is also good.)

At the History Compass, Jean Smith posts about Writing as Process

I usually generate an incredibly unwieldy first draft with quotes that are far too long, no smooth transitions since I am likely to move all the paragraphs anyway and littered with run-on sentences that need dividing into two (and sometimes three) separate phrases. Unlike some of my fellow graduate students, who seem to craft each paragraph to perfection and take days to write a page, for me writing has always been a matter of blurting out everything that is in my head, trying out arguments and then going back again and again to prune and cut and rework and rework some more.

Smith’s piece was inspired by an article in Perspectives, a magazine of the American Historical Association, by Lynn Hunt How Writing Leads to Thinking.

The part that really stood out for me in the Hunt piece is this passage where she talks about the emotional difficulties of putting our writing out there for others to read.

Most problems in writing come from the anxiety caused by the unconscious realization that what you write is you and has to be held out for others to see. You are naked and shivering out on that limb that seems likely to break off and bring you tumbling down into the ignominy of being accused of inadequate research, muddy unoriginal analysis, and clumsy writing. So you hide yourself behind jargon, opacity, circuitousness, the passive voice, and a seeming reluctance to get to the point. It is so much safer there in the foliage that blocks the reader’s comprehension, but in the end so unsatisfying. No one cares because they cannot figure out what you mean to say. How much better it is to stand up before the firing line and discover that no one ordered your execution. The most the critics want is an intense fencing match, and you are more than up to the challenge because you have honed the edges of your research and said forthrightly what you thought.

I encourage you to read both pieces.

I also encourage you to write. In whatever way works for you.