McFee's Commentary

It's really very strange to read that John McFee, the fricken genius who wrote "Travels in Georgia," (which even with it's description of all kinds of creepy crawlies and general nastiness, was one of the most beautiful pieces of essay writing I've ever read) uses "doodles" to map out and illustrate his structure for his students! DOODLES! Little loopy drawings that he projects on the board for his classes. Is this not madness? It just seems so....silly. But I think he's got a point. The article quotes him as saying, "Nonfiction writers have been out collecting material and now they're getting ready to write, and they've got a great mound of stuff on a table...What are they going to do with it?" I totally get that--even without research, just memory, there's FAR too much information to keep your mind clear and organized. It's always difficult for me to start writing--anything. It's hard for me to write research papers--I HAVE to outline. I guess this is pretty much the same thing, though, isn't it? McFee's doodles are like a mixture between a rigid outline and a general story line. I'm still not sure I could use doodles, though...