Writing Season

("Wighting Season," for Elmer Fudd?)

For me, this semester has been the Semester of the Paper. Not the Semester of One Singular Paper (if only life were that simple, anymore), but the Semester of the Idea of the Paper. I am teaching a Physics Seminar course, with the goal of publishing an article with the students; I have worked on two versions of a paper (one addressed to a research mentor and one written with that mentor as a coauthor) about the same project (whose pilot study I haven't yet finished); I have reviewed a paper (on a completely different type of topic) from a collaborator in another state; I've written & submitted a grant proposal about a third project and am preparing a paper proposal about that same project; and, the Monday after Spring Break, I have to submit an abstract (and oversee a student's abstract) to a summer meeting. If you take a look at my whiteboard at home (well, one of my whiteboards at home), you'll see an even longer list of writing projects for the summer.

It always amazes me how the writing process does not necessarilly mirror the research process. A project that failed miserably at each step and was salvaged at the last minute by switching around research goals can sound like a masterpiece; on the other hand, a project that was well planned, well researched, and conducted exactly as scheduled can still come to a screeching hault at the very end and prove to be unsalvagable and unpublishable.

We as Christians base our faith on the result of many individuals' writing processes; no Christians I know of believe that the Bible's authors were somehow mystically guided through some perfection-inducing trance. It would seem that the biblical authors were very much themselves when they wrote these texts. What was Paul's planning & revision process (either on paper or in his head) like when he wrote his letter to the Romans? (Or, given his predeliction for interrupting himself to venture onto tangents, did he not plan & revise at all?) How often did Luke have to revise his outline & thesis as he interviewed witnesses? What kind of sifting process did Solomon go through to pick out & organize Proverbs?

It's amazing to think that, in all of these different writing styles & personal approaches to writing, God crafted together a set of materials for us to base our faith & lives on.