For me, the first step to writing anything is to create a good document needs form. These may vary according to genre, but they all seek to define the rhetorical situation within their respective documents, as in this proposal for an analytical report. This proposal served as a document needs form, from which I blocked out a draft in a notebook. After copying the handwritten draft to a computer document, I printed it out and began to write corrections in the margins. Some of these scribbles constitute a miniature form of postwrite.

A postwrite is a collection of a writer’s notes of reflection on a draft that act as a framework on which to build corrected text. It  focuses attention on weak areas of a draft. My writing process involves the scribbling of postwrite-style comments on printed drafts, because I believe that the handwriting of thoughts strengthens the creative process. I do not use a laptop computer during the early process of comprehensive editing. Though this might seem old fashioned, I stand by the belief that the hand-to-brain connection encourages a deeper and more dynamic form of thinking.

I often start small documents like memos with graphics by first blocking in the text and graphics on notebook paper, as in the example at left. This way, I get an immediate idea of how things will fill out the page. Often, I have a strong sense of how much space on the page a certain idea’s development should take, whether it is graphic or textual.