Tag Archives: Windows 8

October 2, 2013 · 4:49 am

Yin and Yang Cycle – A useful tool

It has been nearly one week since I posted thanks to a mire of major and minor technical problems. The Yin of Windows 8 is excellent. The Yang of it sometimes causes problems. It is 4:15 AM and I have finally re-established contact with the Internet.

This post is about how to apply a Yin/Yang cycle to enhance the writing process. Essentially the idea is to let the Yang (expansive, creative, and sometimes less than substantial) dominate the process for a while, then let the Yin (focused, well edited, and substantial) take over before the essence of an idea is lost or gets off track.

I have been applying this practice to my own writing and it works well with one caveat. Just before the creative burst gets out of hand and the editing process begins, make a brief note of where the thought was going. I found that sometimes it was difficult to restart a line of thought without some form of prompt. The editing process is cold and unfeeling, requiring the objective application of the rules of grammar and a critical focus on word choice, can have a dampening effect on the heat of the creative process.

Generating a prompt to assist to support generative process requires one to ask two critical questions; the first relates to the material to be edited and the second relates to the relevance of the next generative burst. The principal idea that dominates this process is relevance, which demands what has been generated remains relevant to theme of the overall piece and at the same time is relevant to the target audience. Given that the test of relevance has been passed, the written lines must pass the test of completeness of thought. When the Yang of the process is complete another Yin phase can begin. This cyclic, iterative process continues to role along like a rolling Yin/Yang symbol. process
So far, this approach to writing has been keeping the end product tightly written and strongly creative.

Until next time . . .

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August 30, 2013 · 1:33 am

The Struggle Goes On

This post will go down on record as the first and last multi-day post I will ever write.

(August 24, 2013) Re-writing is even more difficult than writing the first draft. One would think that wouldn’t be the case, but it is. The difficulty in reorganizing the manuscript lies in reorganizing the content according to a suggested revised table of contents. There are three dimensions to the task; the first is to find all the information scattered through the manuscript that applies to the new suggested sections, and second is to sequence the information, and the third is to smooth the transitions from paragraph to paragraph.

The reorganized TOC suggested by the developmental editor makes sense, but it is only a skeleton to hang the meat of the body of my work. As I write, I continue to struggle with reading my text as an outsider, although that is becoming easier with time. As I work,  I ask myself if it is possible to overwork and overwrite a text? I suspect that is true, but lack the experience to know if that is what I am doing. When is enough going to be enough?

I’m writing this on a train traveling from Montreal to Toronto, after a few excellent days in celebration of my birthday. The whole trip was my wife’s gift to me. As time marches on, the experiences of the visit are now a part of the repertoire of my experience. I’m going to sit back and enjoy the trip home and some recollections of the last few days for a few hours before I return to completing this post.

(August 29, 2013) I’ve been back from Montreal for a few days, but have been out of communication with the internet. Whatever you do, do not download the beta version of Windows 8.1. It has taken this long to get back to an original form of Windows 8 that was working just fine. Sometimes one just has to fight that nerdy urge that comes up from time to time.

When I left off I was pondering the idea of overworking one’s rewrite (and perhaps one’s self) to death. I still don’t think I have the answer, but I have some ideas. When one prepares a first draft manuscript, some specific ideas drive the process. When an editor suggests a revision of the sequence of content, it becomes problematic. The flow of the whole work dictated the flow of whole sections of the book. Back references to earlier ideas and foreshadowing of ideas to come are now completely out of register. As I began the rewrite task, a sense of being overwhelmed descended like a black cloud. The suggested revision of the TOC pushed me in the correct direction, but it left a great deal to my imagination.

The original introduction was geared to the original sequence, so an entirely rewritten intro is going to be required if I include one. It is likely the last part of the book to be written since one needs to know the full extent of a revised manuscript before an introduction can be prepared.  I decided to approach the rewrite as  if there will be no official introduction, since I am not writing anything so formal that an introduction is likely to be required. Once this idea guided my work two important things happened; first I was able to start writing a revision in earnest, and second, clarity and simplicity guided my writing in an effort to overcome the need for an introduction. The whole task seems less daunting than it did at first.

Next post . . . Flow In non-fiction writing . . . until next time

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