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According to
365 Attempts (At Life), in order to overcome writer's block, she will write something every day for a year. No matter what it is. I remember getting this kind of advice when I was writing my dissertation: if you write one page a day, at the end of the year you will have a 365-page monograph. Same for "how to write a novel" - type books.
But who writes this way? I have the most over-revised first pages of a dissertation--happily, now a book
--that ever existed, because it is impossible for me to sit down and NOT revise what I've already written. Who can just write a page a day and run with it?
It might work for a certain kind of writer--one who isn't compulsive, and who can wait a whole year to revise. But would the writing make any sense? How would it help me overcome writer's block? Does it matter? At the end would I look through it and find a thread that links it together? Or would I just find Virginia Woolf's "diamonds in the dustbin"?
Thinking I might try it.
It's not just me, apparently.
ProfHacker, in this case, Evan Snider, recommends teaching document design as part of teaching writing--liberating us from the standard "Times New Roman, 12 pt., black ink on white paper, 1" margins all around." I don't like it, don't use it, so why impose it on my students? Of course, some guidelines have to be provided--or we'll be getting first-year comp essays in Joker (hot pink!). But teaching the basics of visual design should be part of composition; to convince yourself, read this essay by Anne Wysocki.
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