First Drafts and Fear

Most first drafts of my academic writing are, at least obliquely, about fear. I don’t mean that they comment on fear as an idea or that they make an argument about fear as represented in fiction. Rather, they’re about fear in the sense that they are driven by it, shaped by it, they are written in close proximity to fear. But they don’t name fear outright as the driver—that fact is instead evidenced in the writing. I say this not for sake of public self-flagellation, but because I’m venturing to guess that I’m not alone in this regard, and that talking about this might be helpful.

First, the fear of not finishing the project on time leads to excessive verbiage and digressions so as to meet the word count.

Second, the fear of not sufficiently demonstrating authority or knowledge can lead to looping in the work of other scholars and theorists in a half-hearted and underdeveloped way.

The funny thing is, however prominent these fears may be in my mind as I’m writing, they’re rarely the issues that are identified by readers in feedback. If anything, they cause problems. The lengthy digression, or the engagement with a body of work for no particular reason, act as flags, as if prompting the reader to ask, “But what is this thing really about?”. The question makes sense to me, because if I were reading this in someone else’s work, I’d be asking the same thing.

I’d like to think that it’s helpful to recognize these tendencies so that I don’t beat myself up about it. They are, in part, the consequence of a heavily deadline-driven writing practice, down to words per hour. I do find that helpful, and I don’t intend to change it. But knowing what some of its side-effects are can help me focus my revision work.

If I look at my draft and I see all the parts that are about fear, then aside from acknowledging the possibility that there might be some diamond-in-the-rough material somewhere in there, I ought to give myself the permission to get rid of all that.

And remind myself to ask, cutting all those things away, what is this thing about?

What, in the simplest possible terms, is the core argument here?

At which point, after hopefully doing some effective revision, the draft becomes less about fear and more about what I want it to be about.