Our Own Processes

After reading Michael's post about his sister's writing I got to thinking about my own. What do you do when you write a paper? If it's an extensive research paper (or anything that is strictly factual) I outline a lot before beginning the paper. I still tend to begin with the same format my dad uses, which he showed to me sophomore year for a paper I had to write on Shakespeare. Usually I let it sit around for a few days with just the thesis at the top and my outline below it before coming back to it, revising and moving on. It helps to have that breathing space in between. I used to be the kind of person who had to sit down and write large chunks of a paper all at once but I am slowly growing into the habit of writing a little bit at a time and reviewing my work more consistently. If I am writing something personal or creative I really spend a lot of time thinking until I decided on a central, stong idea of what I should write. I tend to jot it down on the closest thing I can find with whatever writing tool I happen to have on hand. I wrote the main idea for my senior paper last year on an index card with eye liner because that is all I had in the dressing room backstage before my ballet school's performance of the Nutcracker. This all probably seems very unorganized to some of you but I did recieve an A on my senior paper. I find I need to get down ideas right away or my mind distorts them. Granted that was a rare occasion and yes I went home and copied it into a Word document.