Subject: Writing Process

Posted by Richard Turnock on 4/8/2004

Message:

Reading "The Answers Are Inside the Mountains" by William Stafford (edited by Paul Merchant and Vincent Wixon)
ISBN: 0472068547

Stafford died in 1993 and this book was created from his archives by the Editors. In the book, a transcript from an interview by Stafford shows how he thought of writing as a process. I have converted his conversation, using his words, into a possible stock and flow diagram. This might be interesting to develop as a dynamic model and test. He mentions how reading literature affected his writing so that might be a feedback loop. I'm guessing there are feedback loops that might develop if I worked with this model.

Maybe someone has already developed a model in a different way about the writing process. This seemed interesting. I think the word "encountering" for Stafford also means "experiences."

The first stock is an accumulation of epiphanies and the second stock is an accumulation of cumulative epiphanies.

Inflow Stock Outflow
—------------ —---------—--- —------------
encountering epiphanies discovering
discovering cumulative epiphanies writing
writing literature publishing



Richard

Follow Ups:

Writing Process - Bill Rathborne 4/9/2004 
Writing Process - Tim Lucas 4/10/2004
Writing Process - Tim Lucas 4/9/2004