Executable strategy for writing from notes.andymatuschak.org
Notes
A naive writing process begins with a rough inkling about what one wants to write and a blank page. — 2024-10-10 10:41:02 By contrast, if you’ve already written lots of concept-oriented Evergreen notes around the topic, your task is more like editing than composition. — 2024-10-10 10:41:14 Instead of having a task like “write an outline of the first chapter,” you have a task like “find notes which seem relevant.” Each step feels doable. — 2024-10-10 10:41:21 But beware—don’t let this strategy “poison” the initial note-writing process: Write notes for yourself by default, disregarding audience. — 2024-10-10 10:41:27 I describe two approaches here: an undirected version, in which writing projects emerge organically from daily work; and a directed version, in which you’re trying to write about something specific. — 2024-10-10 10:41:43 Undirected version:Write durable notes continuously while reading and thinking. (Evergreen note-writing as fundamental unit of knowledge work)Each time you add a note, add a link to it to an outline, creating one if necessary (Create speculative outlines while you write).Eventually, you’ll feel excited about fleshing out one of those outlines. (Let ideas and beliefs emerge organically)Write new notes to fill in missing pieces of the outline.Concatenate all the note texts together to get an initial manuscriptRewrite it. — 2024-10-10 10:42:16 Directed version:Review notes related to your topic (and a step or two beyond those—Notes should surprise you)Write an outlineAttach existing notes to each point in the outline; write new notes as needed.Concatenate all the note texts together to get an initial manuscriptRewrite it. — 2024-10-10 10:47:53
This is an approach that, as the outline notes must all be written, is constructive in the sense of Grothendieck’s problem solving is. Rather than solve the problem (pump out the work) this strategy advances the understanding in a way that new writings of the same topic can be undirected.