#because i didn't want all that data to be dumped in the alt text

[jlenscribblescribblescribble]

"But if the White Album seems at times not to cohere, maybe that's because--following Lennon's remark--it's actually a John Lennon album, a Paul McCartney album, a George Harrison EP, and a Ringo Starr single, all released together under the Beatles name."

(John Covach, Afterword - The Beatles Through a Glass Onion: Reconsidering the White Album ed. Mark Osteen)

Chart Transcript

Paul, John, George, and Ringo Songs Grouped as Individual Releases

McCartney and the band (14 songs).

Lady Madonna (songs based on the music of others).

Hey Jude (McCartney at piano or guitar, serious lyrics).

Back in the U.S.S.R. (songs based on the music of others).

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da (songs based on the music of others).

Wild Honey Pie (instrumental).

Martha My Dear (McCartney at piano or guitar, serious lyrics). [Sic.]

Blackbird (McCartney at piano or guitar, serious lyrics).

Rocky Raccoon (songs based on the music of others).

Why Don't We Do It (songs based on the music of others).

I Will (songs based on the music of others).

Birthday (songs based on the music of others).

Mother Nature's Son (McCartney at piano or guitar, serious lyrics).

Helter Skelter (songs based on the music of others).

Honey Pie (songs based on the music of others).

Lennon and the band (14).

Revolution ("finger-wagging" songs).

Dear Prudence.

Glass Onion ("finger-wagging" songs).

Bungalow Bill ("finger-wagging" songs).

Happiness is a Warm Gun (songs prompted by phrases of others).

I'm So Tired.

Julia (songs prompted by phrases of others).

Yer Blues (songs based on the music of others).

Me and My Monkey.

Sexy Sadie ("finger-wagging" songs).

Revolution 1 ("finger-wagging" songs).

Cry Baby Cry (songs prompted by phrases of others).

Revolution 9 (instrumental).

Good Night (vocals by Starr).

Harrison and the band (5).

The Inner Light (songs influenced by Indian music or Eastern philosophy).

While My Guitar (songs influenced by Indian music or Eastern philosophy, songs prompted by phrases of others).

Piggies (songs employing humor, "finger-wagging" songs).

Long, Long, Long (songs influenced by Indian music or Eastern philosophy).

Savoy Truffle (songs employing humor, "finger-wagging" songs, songs prompted by phrases of others).

Starr and the Band (2)

Don't Pass Me By.

(Good Night, songwriting by Lennon).

[thegirlwiththelilactattoo]

No. 6, or a Writing Process

Once upon a time, my writing process was as follows: write an entire paper based on vibes and evidence from readings. Let the argument develop organically. If at some point I didn't like the writing style, argument, or anything else, delete the entire paper and restart. It didn't matter if I had 1 page or 8, if I didn't like the paper, I would rewrite the whole thing from scratch.

Most of the forms of taking stock of ideas before writing haven't worked for me. Outlines in their I/II/III/a./b./c. are too structured to be hold the all the ideas happening in my head that cannot be made sense of in roman numerals. For me, the process of writing is where I start making connections and synthesizing ideas. It's the part that I like and enjoy. I need to dump fully formed ideas, musings, considerations, secondary and primary data on a page and only then can I make sense what all the information is telling me. I couldn't tell you how one idea builds into the next or where one ideas flows into the other because I need to write it first. I need to experience it and make the connections, and develop the ideas.

As a college student, this manifested in my terrible habit of writing and deleting thousands of words until what I had on the page was as if someone had lovingly made sense of the red stringed conspiracy board in my head. This worked fine for me in college. Like was it entirely inefficient? Absolutely! Did my papers suffer for it? Nope!

It's only in grad school that I've had to reevaluate this process. In No. 4, I talked about imposter syndrome. I never used to be an anxious writer. In college I felt very confident about my skills as a write, it wasn't until grad school that I started to feel like an imposter. I'm hyperaware of how my own writing style fails to match up to scholars in the field or my peers. I am compelled to self edit constantly to emulate "good" prose and that makes writing feel impossible. It's another thing grad school has taken from me, the joy of writing confidently and unashamed.

Now that I am responsible for writing a 60,000 word document in the next 13 months, I have tried to find ways of working that support my writing and thinking process.

Mind Mapping

Mind mapping is one of my first steps to dealing with anxiety. With a mind map I am dealing with the known. The data I already have and my general ideas. It's also the most legible outline I have to convey to my committee members that thinking is happening.

My first step before writing is to summarize the points that I want to make in a paragraph. I try to cover the main ideas in broad strokes and craft a short thesis. For me, this has to be as open as possible. If it's too specific and maps out each move, I feel restricted and anxious.

Once my summary is complete, I make a mind map. I'm in the social sciences and working quite interdisciplinary, so the mind map helps me to organize my thoughts and the breadth of data visually. This is a must for me. It's very similar to an outline, but something about the blobs feels much less stressful. I've used MindMup (free) and am currently using MindNode (paid).

I basically use the mind map as a quasi outline to get the general idea of the logical path of my argument and the main pieces of evidence I'll use to craft my argument. This also serves as the basic structure of the chapter organization.

Because the mind map is relatively general, I feel free to explore various lines of thought, which then leads me to my Zero Draft!

Note: I also use a similar mind map in the literature review process either through an app or on a bulletin board like how I describe in this post.

[Alt text: Screenshot of a mind map. The original content has been covered with boxes to generalize the categories. The first node says Argument One which leads to another node that says Literature Review. It then branches off to three child nodes that say Data 1, Data 2, and Data 3.]

Zero Draft

I'm currently at the Zero Draft phase of my first chapter. This topic is mentioned in Joan Bulker's Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a day, where most of her advice for writing your dissertation is to just...write.

This is the part of writing that is really fun for me, the infodump. I use a zero draft to do all the messy thinking and linking of ideas. I leave ideas unedited and clunky. I move from section to section at my leisure. I delete things. I write notes to myself about ideas I want to develop or lingering questions that I want to address.

It's the draft where I feel free to just say anything without justifying myself. As such, I don't really make any concrete arguments in this draft. It's kind of like sculpting the body and later I figure out what the head will look like.

The zero draft is for messiness that I will then refine in a later draft. Once my zero draft is written, I have a good sense of what I actually want to say and can rewrite my first draft to most effectively say it. It's essentially like doing a reverse outline.

Closing Thoughts (???)

Writing can be such an opaque process and academia thrives on this "figure it out own your own" mentality. I've never really found writing advice that spoke to my own particular neurodivergent way of thinking, so I hope this is helpful to at least someone else!