Monday, December 03, 2007

the drawbacks of outlining

I just drew up a sketchy outline of where the rest of this chapter needs to go (along the lines of "topic a: 5 pgs, topic b: 5 pgs, topic c: 5 pgs").

My immediate train of thought:
1. I can write each of those sections in a day.
2. I know more or less what they will contain. I have notes for each of them.
3. I AM DONE WITH THE CHAPTER! NO MORE WORK NECESSARY! TIME TO CELEBRATE!
4. Because isn't it what's in my head that counts?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

OMG. I am seriously starting to think that you and I might be sharing a brain. :)

Congrats on finishing the chapter (outline)!

Sisyphus said...

I do the same stuff with planning out my life/job market stuff. Since I've already laid out my plans, I should be getting tenure in a couple weeks!

kermitthefrog said...

Congratulations to us all! I'll bring the champagne if you provide the finger food.

Breena Ronan said...

Beorn does this. I say, "have you gotten started on that paper yet?" Then he says, "It's mostly done, I have it all outlined in my head. I have been thinking about it a lot." (Then I freak out. After that I pretend that I'm not all co-dependent and freaking out.)

kermitthefrog said...

The thing is, I'd like to believe he's not *wrong* in saying that, although there's obviously a major step missing in this whole process...

Breena Ronan said...

It seems to mostly work for him, it's just that he tends to underestimate the amount of time needed to extract it from his brain. (He's still turning in papers for classes, so deadlines are kind of important.)