Composition of Philosophy. July 23.

The draft of the first half of the book is finally done.

It’s somewhere under 70 pages, meaning it’s just about the right length already. But there’s some unevenness– Chapters 1, 2, and 4 are too long, while Chapters 3 and 5 are too short. The entire draft is also fairly poorly written, but you all know I don’t care about that in the initial stage. The witchcraft that turns flat propositions into alluring riddles is best practiced near the end.

General remark: this was one of the toughest weeks of writing I’ve had in quite awhile, meaning that it wasn’t especially enjoyable, and thus I often had to force myself to work. The difference between 2009 and 1995, for me, is that in 1995 if I were having a tough writing week I would have done nothing and just read books while waiting for the mood to pass. These days, I don’t wait for it to pass. I’m able to put something together even when not especially feeling like working, and that something is always good raw material for when the special mood really does hit.

There seem to be two different schools of thought about the value of “inspiration.” Some find it essential, while others scorn this notion and think of writing as a craft that can be done for a specified number of hours per day.

So far on this blog, it might sound like I’m an advocate of the second approach. But that’s not quite true. I also think that inspiration is important. I simply don’t think you need to have it on the first draft. I’ve chosen to downplay inspiration on this blog simply because dissertation writers are guilty of waiting for inspiration far more often than they are guilty of the opposite extreme of soulless production. I do think there should be a spark of magic in any piece of writing, but I also think it can come at one of several different stages in the project.

The first draft can be a fairly flat aggregate of poorly written paragraphs strung together in a reasonably good order based on a preliminary outline. And then it can be recrafted from that form into something much better. Sometimes you get lucky and the Muses are with you from the start. But that isn’t always the case. And if you never try a first draft of anything until the Muses arrive, you’re often going to go for months without doing anything, because sometimes that’s how seldom they arrive.

Do you think Michelangelo or Rembrandt moped around at home waiting to be inspired? Not really. They went into the studio and worked. Which isn’t to say that it’s only a practical craft, just that a lot of the preliminaries can be done in the manner of a craft, and then maybe one night the spirit returns and you are able to breathe life into the whole thing. That’s the point when you really start to fall in love with a project. But you don’t need to be in love with a project yet just to work on it.

So far, I’m not in love with this draft. But I’ll surely be in love with it by the end of August. You’ll start to notice the change in tone once I reach that stage.

Now, what’s next? My new goal is still to have a completely polished first five chapters by July 31, which would give me all of August to write the second half.

Shall I start tomorrow? Or shall I press the reset button with a day-trip to Alexandria? I’m thinking the latter, but if I’m in an especially good writing mood then I’ll stay home and do that.