Writing about learning to learn about writing

I never used to like to write. Somewhere along the lines it started to click and I soon started to find it much easier to get the words down on the page. Just recently I’ve recognised that I have two writing styles; one is to write about learning and the other is writing about the stuff I’ve learned. And one is much easier to write than the other.

I first started blogging around 10 years ago. At that point in time, it was a way to share my photos and cooking. My first blog ‘My Dandelion Mind’ was a mis-mash of ‘everything I do in my life’. Probably how most people start out. I apologise to those readers now. I will not include a link, but you’ll find it through Google. Some pieces were a bit weird but some actually did quite well and had regular traffic.

I don’t add to that blog anymore. I now have a ‘professional’ blog at www.annetteraffan.com, which is a more targeted approach to articles. That one is designed to help PhD students, like me, navigate their journey before, during and after their studies. I include tips and tricks, books I like and ideas for us to keep on track. But it takes me an age to write an article.

However, sometimes, I just want to write and get stuff out my head, you know?

So then there’s this one, which I literally started yesterday. It’s designed to fill that hole; that urge to write something useful (at least to me) but that doesn’t have a set purpose. So this one is a different style. It’s a ‘thought’ blog where I think about stuff or journal about things. I find that there are some things I want to write about, like this one, that don’t really suit the more stuffy ‘professional’ blog. The articles on here are the ones that ramble, explore and help me work things out, rather than the final polished article.

Writing to learn is a different style of writing; and I’ve realised this is it. It’s an exploratory approach, unencumbered by expectation. And it really helps me to learn to write too. I like to think it’s the unpolished diamond hidden deep in the mine somewhere; sometimes it’s found and other times, it will stay buried forever.

I guess in other words, it’s my way of learning in public. Thinking aloud. It’s not help guides, advice, nor ‘best lists’, it’s just writing as it pretty much pops into my head. There will be little structure, beyond the title idea I want to explore. These thought pieces are designed to flow and be unrestricted of having a specific purpose, or target audience.

I mean, yes, I hope you’ll learn something. But you see this is the easiest way I have found to learn; through writing. And writing about writing. However, I have learn to write and to love to write through writing a ridiculous amount of rubbish! Believe me when I say that it’s usually already sat around in a notebook or my Obsidian vault for a while before it gets to this stage.

The Quantity vs Quality debate

When it comes to quality vs quantity, quality has developed from quantity in this case. I feel that quality has come not from simply ‘writing better’ but from writing more and then having to deal with editing the quantity. By learning that editing a quality piece is easier than a quantity piece, I subconsciously work on the quality as a ‘well it will save me some time later’. Quality has also improved through learning what makes good writing; like reading books on how to write. And reading good things and bad things. And getting to know the cavernous difference between a book that has been through a professional editor and one that has been self-published and has well … not.

The advantage of doing a PhD is you have to read a lot and you have to learn a lot, all by yourself. So you develop ways to improve those things. It becomes easier to identify a good resource and a poor resource and you aim to emulate the former. I’ve learnt that I learn things, by writing. Yet reading is also an aspect of developing good writing. I suspect most good writers, read a lot. Whether through choice or research, it helps develop ideas which help things to flow on the page.

For me, when it comes to writing, the style of writing makes a huge difference as to how fast I can write. This piece, I can write in less than an hour. The same length of critical writing in my PhD thesis could easily take a day or more. Add to that the various reviews it will likely go through, and the time difference is huge.

So why the massive difference? I mean it’s all writing, right?

Well, it’s because of the writing purpose; to educate, argue, summarise, learn? What is the purpose? This article has a purpose of acting as a rolling tape script. I think, and I write what I think. It is pretty much unfiltered and little editing needs to take place because it’s my thoughts, not anyone else’s. When it comes to academic writing or help guides, I need to get it right. I need the facts straight and I need to know where they come from. If I need to write an argument then I need the sources to back up that argument. These are the bits that take the time.

Academic writing is more of a ‘gluing together of notes’, interwoven with ideas, moulded to form a summary or argument of research. But it’s still hard to write.

Therefore, I would now ask the question, is it possible to get into the same flow state with academic writing, unencumbered by references while also ensuring all the i’s are dotted and the t’s are crossed?

Well, to a certain extent, that’s what I want to explore in this blog. It’s a space that is my thought space. I shall include inspiring works, but I want it to be a space to feel safe to explore ideas that I may not be the originator for, but that I want to develop further. Then at the end of the article, to make things easier and to rest by conscious, I’ll include a list of inspiration. Kind of like a post hoc footnote that doesn’t encumber the ideas of mine as they flow through the text, but so that I still respect the originators.

I wish that creators did this more. I mean, I’m not asking for a fully referenced article, but a list of inspirators at the end would work wonders for finding out who began developing an idea.

In many of the books and blogs I read there are a lot of crossovers in ideas. The author often takes full ownership of the idea as theirs, but often it is an amalgamation of others’, with the author bringing them together and streamlining them in their own way. Which is fine, it’s a new take or angle or purpose that they’ve identified. However, it’s often impossible to understand where ideas came from, how they developed and who really deserves the credits for the ideas and systems they have put forward.

Even though I could go on for days writing about specific topics, I often find these articles do come to a natural end, like now. Either my brain says, ‘you’ve explored enough for today’ or I realise that I’ve gone on for pages and pages. If you’ve read this far, I’m glad. I hope that it will help inspire you on your journey of writing to learn, rather than worrying about feeling the pressure of sharing everything you know.

We need to give ourselves permission to have unencumbered creation. This is it and I hope you enjoy it.