An Article an Hour: The High-Output Writer

Article an Hour: Initial concept sketch
(c) 2006 David Calloway, M.Ed.
AudiKnow LLC--Listening Between the Lines
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I have in mind a methodology for writing articles fast: 2 people collaborate within a framework that's akin to Agile Systems Development.

Note that this piece was written in solo, so it took over an hour and is still not quite finished.

Aspects
- Peer collaboraation: I help you, then you help me. Accountability creates outcomes.
- Could this help people who do publish often to write more efficiently?
How do columnists write so much, so often? Do most work alone? Ask Ron Goldwyn, retired Inquirer reporter, now doing PR for non-profits.
e-Book writers- David Newman, unconsulting.com- Have techniques for writing e-books that would apply to writing articles? If nothing else, buy his book on the subject.

It’s said “RBs (right-brainers) just start writing, and LBs outline first.” As a left-brainer, I tend to jump right into the writing. Then my training kicks in, I outline a bit, and then return to writing. The more purposefully I follow this back-and-forth method, the more quickly I create a better article. An outline is like an evolving map of my subject matter: it’s as much to remember where I’ve been as to see where I’m going.

How do writing teams work, vs solo writers?
Examples--
TV writers work in teams- daily or weekly TV programs, news, sitcoms, serials.
Song factories of the 50s: Gamble & Huff, Holland-Dozier-Holland, and the place Carole King worked.
2-writer teams in musical theatre: G&S, Lennon-McCartney, Lerner & Lowe. While these teamed two specialists, could the songsmith and the wordsmith each help in the other’s specialty?

My related experiences. I’m convinced that learning to be a technical writer made me a better writer in all ways, including the creative. I’m more coherent and focused. My academic and journalistic writing in college was inspiring and fun to read. But it was to unstructured and directionless to be compelling.
As a Project Documenter, I found that an aggressive deadline and at least one other person awaiting a deliverable seemed to activate and focus my knowledge and experience, as well as my imagination. Near-term feedback is vital for me.

The problem. Two big time losers curse my writing process: The final, fatal, never-ending rewrite of perfectionism, and mid-stream ideas and course changes. The details about these phenomena are not central to this article, and so are elaborated at the end. I have some thoughts on how I might handle them.

The Solution. A collaborative, team-based methodology called Agile Development works great in systems development and other project-driven arenas. How about agile writing?

Here’s how it might work: As soon as the 1st draft is more or less complete, post it to a publishing partner. They’ll clean it up, note questions and changes so it’ll make more sense and impact, and re-post it. Then in IM, we quickly work out the details, and whoever has the most complete version in front of them, publishes it.

How do newspaper professionals handle this? They have to get a lot out quickly.
More questions for Ron and other columnists and reporters:
- Do you work in collaboration with another writer, or solo?
- If solo, then who do you know who works better in collaboration?
- If both, is one or the other way better for certain kinds of writing?
- Are there already collaborative techniques to help tangential thinkers finish things?
- Working with a computer is a help and a hindrance for me. (Say how.) How is it for others? Help: quick capture and re-arrangement. On paper, I scribble, micro-edit (correcting misspellings, poor expression, and sloppiness, rather than saving that for later.)
Hindrance: Over-correct here too, such as going back just now and giving the word “over” an initial cap; …

Perfectionism has no place in writing for periodicals or blogs. Whether it even belongs in writing for the millennia—in books, constitutions, and addresses to the nation, say—is debatable. Perfectionism does not make perfect, it just makes never-finished.

Mid-stream inspirations. The desperation to “get it all in” will trump the need for conciseness and completion. This desperation can be overcome only by the satisfaction of seeing one’s name frequently in bylines. And with that, the knowing that whatever doesn’t get said in this article is material for the next one, or the one after that.

My typical writing scenario
An idea or inspiration will appear in surprising detail. I’m off to a fast start, and within 10 minutes I capture a lot of it, loosely outlining and rearranging as I go. A computer helps a lot here.
Then I add in elaborations, caveats, and counter-arguments.
Then I balance and integrate the counter-arguments, and knock out the ones that aren’t relevant.
That’s when I enter the danger zone. Just when I should be wrapping up, usually within a half hour or so, a radically different twist or insight occurs, and I charge off in hot pursuit. That tangent turns into more tangents. An hour later I realize that the original article has been lost in the vine-tangle of tangents.
An hour and a half have now passed. The article is unfinished, and no longer about what I said I’d write about. Other, neglected tasks are demanding my attention. Discouraged, I jot a few more quick notes and put it aside for later.
This story has two possible conclusions, depending on whether the article’s been assigned, or self-initiated.
If assigned: Weeks pass. If the article’s been assigned for a journal, the editor calls me at the last minute. Tossing all else aside, I labor to squeeze myself back into the original inspiration. Hacking away the tangled vines of tangents and detours, I finally submit a pretty good article, much like the one I could have written in the first hour or so.
If self-initiated: Months, or even years, pass. The article, with its original inspiration, is forgotten, like it never happened. If it was a brilliant response or insight into an event in the world, it has become old news. Then, while searching through my file cabinet or hard drive for something else, I stumble across this tarnished trove of unfinished masterpieces and unrealized visions, and suffer deep pangs of regret and loss.

(c) 2006 David Calloway, M.Ed.
AudiKnow LLC--Listening Between the Lines
e-Content and e-Learning. Fast, fresh, and accurate. Hi-tech and hi-touch.
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