Life's Rivers...: Unfolding Parallel Outlines

Friday April 15, 2022; 11:01 AM EDT

I have long been a fan of Christopher Alexander who has influenced my design processes in the field of architecture. He also influenced computer science which repurposed his thinking in The Pattern Language into programming concepts. Christopher Alexander proposed that good designs can be measured by the degree of life they contain and he defined this concept and how to measure it. And like nature, that we can create designs that are full of life if we allow them to unfold naturally. He passed away recently, but his thinking is fully developed in his most recent set of four books on The Nature of Order. I propose that outlines structure word chunks in a way that allow us to unfold better writing, maybe even helping to achieve writing that is "full of life?"#

In the past, I have used a structured methodology by Peter Ingle using outlining to write longer technical articles. The goal, it to spend more time planning what you write, and less time re-writing. It has worked well for me, except I usually jump into word crafting too early, especially for shorter pieces. But on my most recent story, I committed myself to the discipline of unfolding a story in a set of sequential steps. When I did finally jump from outline to prose in my "first" draft if flowed nicely and quickly. I slept on it one night, reread it, and marked it up with surprisingly little red ink. After sleeping on it one more night, I woke and quickly edited it into its final form.#

An important learning lesson was not allowing the outline to evolve and transform into the finished product. Rather, I redid each outline anew as the purpose of the outline changed with each sequential step. This allowed me to expand parallel outline chunks to review previous stages and keep the writing focused and on the task at hand during that stage of the process of unfolding. It also has the benefit of preserving previous ideas that I could return to if/when needed.#

I wonder if shorter pieces can transform and jump to prose more quickly? It seems to me that Dave has developed great skill at quickly unfolding prose using outlines. I on the other hand have a tendency towards complexity, and benefit from the discipline of outline planning, even on shorter pieces. Longer piece definitely benefit from discipline in planning, and most likely from the process of parallel development. At least that is true for me. On my most recent effort below, I made it 90% of the way before jumping to prose. Still too early. Next time I am going for 95% of the way! I will leave it to you to judge is Starlifter Down has a the quality of “life" within it?#

Friday April 15, 2022; 11:01 AM EDT

I have long been a fan of Christopher Alexander who has influenced my design processes in the field of architecture. He also influenced computer science which repurposed his thinking in The Pattern Language into programming concepts. Christopher Alexander proposed that good designs can be measured by the degree of life they contain and he defined this concept and how to measure it. And like nature, that we can create designs that are full of life if we allow them to unfold naturally. He passed away recently, but his thinking is fully developed in his most recent set of four books on The Nature of Order. I propose that outlines structure word chunks in a way that allow us to unfold better writing, maybe even helping to achieve writing that is "full of life?"#

In the past, I have used a structured methodology by Peter Ingle using outlining to write longer technical articles. The goal, it to spend more time planning what you write, and less time re-writing. It has worked well for me, except I usually jump into word crafting too early, especially for shorter pieces. But on my most recent story, I committed myself to the discipline of unfolding a story in a set of sequential steps. When I did finally jump from outline to prose in my "first" draft if flowed nicely and quickly. I slept on it one night, reread it, and marked it up with surprisingly little red ink. After sleeping on it one more night, I woke and quickly edited it into its final form.#

An important learning lesson was not allowing the outline to evolve and transform into the finished product. Rather, I redid each outline anew as the purpose of the outline changed with each sequential step. This allowed me to expand parallel outline chunks to review previous stages and keep the writing focused and on the task at hand during that stage of the process of unfolding. It also has the benefit of preserving previous ideas that I could return to if/when needed.#

I wonder if shorter pieces can transform and jump to prose more quickly? It seems to me that Dave has developed great skill at quickly unfolding prose using outlines. I on the other hand have a tendency towards complexity, and benefit from the discipline of outline planning, even on shorter pieces. Longer piece definitely benefit from discipline in planning, and most likely from the process of parallel development. At least that is true for me. On my most recent effort below, I made it 90% of the way before jumping to prose. Still too early. Next time I am going for 95% of the way! I will leave it to you to judge is Starlifter Down has a the quality of “life" within it?#

Last update: Friday April 15, 2022; 11:22 AM EDT.