Re: Invention

Tom Allbaugh (allbaugh@SIU.EDU)
Wed, 3 Jul 1996 11:05:05 -0500

>For anyone who might want to talk a little casual shop:
>
> What do you do during the invention stage of your own writing process?
>I thought it might be interesting to find out how writing instructors
>write.
>
>Craig B.
>
First, a disclaimer: it depends on what I'm working on.

Then, it can start in one of several ways, with an insight from reading or
hearing something else, from being given an assignment, or from desire.

Then, one of a few things happen. I write (mostly freewrite) and write and
discover, and this freewriting morphs into what the textbooks call drafting.
Then I go for drives (much of my prewriting happens in the car). Or I read
up on a subject. Or I make short lists of related ideas.

At some stage the invention is actually mixed up with drafting, and the
drafts become stages at which new invention takes place.

Tom Allbaugh
Tom and Bernadette Allbaugh
173-6 Evergreen Terrace
Carbondale, IL 62901
allbaugh@siu.edu