Writing without Teachers

1. Freewriting Exercises -- How freewriting exercises help -- Freewriting and garbage -- Keep a freewriting diary -- Using freewriting exercises for finding subjects to write about -- Producing a finished piece of writing -- 2. The Process of Writing-Growing -- Autobiographical digression -- It makes a difference in practice -- Growing -- Start writing and keep writing -- Chaos and disorientation -- Emerging center of gravity -- Editing -- Growing as a developmental process -- 3. The Process of Writing-Cooking -- Cooking as interaction between people -- Cooking as interaction between ideas -- Cooking as interaction between words and ideas, between immersion and perspective -- Cooking as interaction between metaphors -- Cooking as interaction between genres and modes -- Cooking as interaction between you and symbols on paper -- Noncooking -- Desperation writing -- The goal is cooking -- Cooking and energy -- Goodness and badness -- Why the old, wrong model of writing persists -- Conclusion -- 4. The Teacherless Writing Class -- Setting up the class -- Giving movies of your mind -- Further advice to readers -- Advice to the writer on listening -- The class process -- 5. Thoughts on the Teacherless Writing Class -- How I came to this approach -- Huh? -- Why the teacherless class helps make writing easier -- Why the teacherless class helps make writing better -- People learn from the truth, even though the truth is a mess -- The process of learning writing -- What about grammar? -- The yogurt model -- Subjective bullshit -- Multiple-choice diary -- Appendix Essay: The Doubting Game and the Believing Game-An Analysis of the Intellectual Enterprise -- The monopoly of the doubting game -- The truth about meaning and words -- Short digression on the New Critics -- Why the doubting game doesn't work with assertions of meaning -- The believing muscle -- Meaning-making as gestalt-making -- The myth of the laboratory rat -- Believing and doubting as dialetics -- The two dialectics as games -- The believing game in action: fighting the itch for closure -- The two games as reinforcers of different character traits -- Fears of the believing game -- Speculations on the history of the believing game -- Conclusion: the interdependence of the two games -- Appendix: A Couple of Notes to Myself -- Works Cited -- A Few Books to Help with Correct Usage -- Reminders to Keep in View -- During a Teacherless Writing Class.