Leaning into the Mess! (If that’s your schtick) by Lizzie
Leaning into the Mess! (If that’s your schtick)
written by Lizzie
I’m no longer a graduate student, but--at least as a writer--I frequently still feel like one. To be sure, the ten plus years I’ve now spent getting more at home in the scholarship has vastly increased my comfort level with my place in the field: I now feel like I know enough to understand and make good arguments, and that’s a big difference from my early and far less self-assured graduate student self. Nonetheless, as a scholarly writer--someone who is constructing some original, coherent argument that I hope will be relevant to others in my field--I often still feel like a beginner. Every project presents me with a new blank page, and with the challenge of how to make something cogent out of the tangled knots of half formed suspicions that start any project off.
When I first heard scholars in my field talk about the writing process as “messy,” I thought, yes, exactly! I’ve always been a messy writer, and most especially, a messy reviser--and quite outwardly so. My desk is an Oscar Madison-like pile of papers. Actually, my whole house is full of these piles of papers, which I shift around or try to hide in baskets or tote bags when we have people over or my husband finally loses his temper. And I hope that this blog post’s description of my messy process will offer some consolation to others who may look upon their mess with shame. I say, no shame! The mess, at least for those of us who think and work this way, is a crucial part of the process.
I compose my scholarly writing both on paper and on my laptop, which is one part of what makes me messy. What I do: I produce drafts on my laptop--drafts that might be really sketchy or really tight, depending on how that project is going--and then I print them out. Then I sit somewhere quiet and start to revise, with a pen. This can take me in multiple directions. Sometimes, if I’m lucky, things are looking okay, and some paragraphs just need some sentence level changes (rephrasing something, adding a bit of detail). That’s rare, though. Most often my by-hand revisions are really big picture. In fact, I have a hard time thinking in this big picture way if my draft is still just on the computer screen. I like to have a whole draft laid out page by page across a large surface so I can see how it unfolds, and imagine other structures. I often write a reverse outline in the margins to help myself see how my argument is (or isn’t) progressing. Then I start thinking about what needs to change.
So yes, here’s the mess. I might decide I need to add a new paragraph, so I’ll write up the side of the paper, on the back side, or go onto a new sheet I’ve torn out from a pad. Or I might restructure the order of ideas. I have arrows going every which way. I have multiple asterisk icons I use--stars, hearts, smiley faces--to reference other sections. A paragraph might include an arrow to a new set of sentences I’ve scrawled on the bottom of the page, then to a heart icon with a page number, pointing me to a point I’ve made, say, three pages back. I’d have a really hard time doing this on a computer screen. Having these printouts helps me see the writing as something real and tangible, and thus also moldable, re-shapeable.
Then I go back and type it all back into a new document. Of course these chicken scrawls can sometimes be hard to read. But having done that messy work on a hard copy makes this process feel, as I’ve said, more tangible and real. And it reminds me that working through the inherent messiness of building a complex argument is, for me at least, really generative--and that if I don’t embrace the mess, I’m often just skimming the surface, and selling my own ideas short. If, in other words, I give myself permission to make a mess, I give myself permission to critique and rethink my ideas in bigger ways than I might otherwise. It allows me to think: What would happen if I took this argument apart, and reset it in a different way? What would happen if I introduced this idea before that one, or that before this? What if I combined all these points into one, or--in contrast--if I took this one point apart to show the fundamental elements that make it up?
I once shared an office with a graduate student who was the Felix to my Oscar (this is an Odd Couple reference, for those of you who don’t know). Her desk had a single folder containing a pristine sheaf of papers, a single pen, always capped, and a laptop. She was an excellent scholar--so something in her at least outwardly tidy process was obviously working. But for me, the mess is essential. If it is for you too, say yes to the mess!
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