To have written what he did, he had to be an unusual person. The ideas and stories and phrases that came from him could only have come from him.
What I didn't realise was that he and I share a trait or two.
When he wrote, what a script editor might think needed a minor tweak would send Douglas Adams back to square one and result in a complete re-write as if the entire document had fallen apart. Because it had. Because everything is interwoven and to change one thing is to disturb the whole. In Doctor Who terms, one tiny change - such as Donna Noble saving her dad from death - can rip a hole in the space-time continuum and bring the universe to an end unless there is a dramatic intervention.
Listening to Douglas Adam's past colleagues and collaborators - and his poor script editors - talk about this trait made me see that his scripts really had only needed a minor tweak to make them suitable for their purpose, which was to be broadcast as a radio show. They had not needed complete rewriting for any audience other than Douglas Adams himself. He was compelled to do those rewrites because even one tiny tweak created such cognitive discomfort.
I write like Douglas Adams. I am not claiming to have his flair, wit, originality or skill. I lay claim to the same trait whereby what someone might perceive as suggesting a minor tweak is received by me as a need to return to square one, in order to reconstruct from the foundations up something that 'feels comfortable' and incorporates that tweak.
But you can't do that with a doctoral thesis. At least, not for a doctoral thesis that you intend to submit.
I need to learn a two-fold art, and I need to learn it rapidly. I need to learn how to spot when what to others seems a minor tweak does require a return to square one, and I need to learn to live with cognitive discomfort when it does not.
No comments:
Post a Comment