Writing - Writing process

Preaching to the choir is pointless. My writings should elicit interest to the novice therefore no prior knowledge is required, only an open mind. Being knowledgeable in a subject makes it difficult to put oneself in a neophyte's place, best not to presume comprehension and get actual feedback from readers. In the event the content requires prior knowledge, separate tracks are to be created to help the reader decide.

Writing a blog gives a lot of flexibility around the format. In our busy world people have few downtime, even an interested person could put an article aside for future reading, never to return to it if the time investment is too great. Each article should be self contained with enough information to be valuable but taking only a few minutes to read. The text should have a sensible ratio of information density and easy of reading.

The site is analog to a forest, with each article being a single tree. Within an article a heading is akin to a branch, a nested heading a subbranch with text for leaves. A branch with a nested level greater than three gets trimmed and becomes its own tree. One too broad gets rebalanced by redefining its content, still considering the previous rule.

The use of jargon allows the expression of complex ideas in a single word. Unfortunately it has for side effect to hinder comprehension to the noninitiate. Technical terms should be used sparingly and only after a proper, easy to grasp definition has been given. It need not be exhaustive, simply contextual.

Borrowing a saying from the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius in De rerum natura: Ex nihilo nihil fit (i.e Out of nothing, nothing is created). New ideas burgeon from existing ones, they need an anchor to draw substance from and flourish.

Writings treating topics in which I have a certain degree of expertise have their ideas laid out in a very systematic and purposeful manner.

Writing is also a mean of survival in a world that goes awry and cast anybody deviating from the norm as a misfit. It becomes a way to hold on to reality, to not accept the status quo and not succumb to apathy. Ideas emerging from this frame of mind are not fully develop, rather dispersed and still needing processing. Further narrowing is then needed to keep things concise and clear.

To ensure depth and factual accuracy all sources are managed locally with highlights, annotations, cross-references, citations stored in plain text or in a database.

Monologuing to a willing ear is most helpful when developing an outline, letting the ideas flow naturally. Talking to oneself being another option even if less effective.

Then come the time to capture thoughts as keywords or sentence fragments in a hierarchical or slightly disordered manner.

In the first draft the arguments are built and linked together in a logical and systematic manner. In successive revisions spaced in time for a fresh perspective incomplete parts are expanded upon, missing ones are added, the order of information is checked, unclear or irrelevant statements are removed.

Once the draft is in a stable state the presence of typos, grammatical errors, ambiguous phrasing, redundancy, stylistic inconsistencies is thoroughly checked for in addition to the adherence to the rules and constraints.

At this stage all writings are to be considered as work in progress, publishing then regularly nonetheless to keep momentum. Everything being accessible in open access under a copyleft free culture license (CC BY-SA 4.0).