Madman, Architect, Carpenter, Judge

In order to offset some of the tuition expenses, I serve as a TA in some of the public health writing courses at the Johns Hopkins University (not to be confused with JHU’s MFA or undergraduate writing courses.) In these courses, we use The Harvard Business Review’s Guide to Better Business Writing as a text. Though the guide isn’t focused on creative writing, I still find their writing process framework to be generally useful:

Step 1: be a "madman" by brainstorming ideas and gathering facts.

Step 2: be an architect, creating an outline from those ideas.

Step 3: be a carpenter, building a first draft quickly without stopping to self-edit.

Step 4: acts as a judge and makes several editing passes.

Having spent last six months inspecting every nail in my novel (and even completing some serious custom renovations!), I’m more than ready to clear the docket and put my hammer to rest. I enjoy the architectural work the most, and I’m looking forward to getting back to some of that this summer after a good session this spring as a literary madwoman.