Fowler Writing Method

Spew pages and pages of whatever is on your mind

Throw the pages on the floor

Scrabble desperately around trying to figure out what they are all about (this results in throwing at least half the pages away).

Now you have an outline with a bunch of holes. Fill in the holes and you have a book.

In my opinion, Fowler's finished books are *still* full of holes. --top

This looks suspiciously akin to the No Design Up Front tactic of Extreme Programming:

Jump right in and write code

Re Factor like mad

Intelligible design (Self Documenting Code) emerges eventually

Kent Beck summarized it like this: Fowler's Law of Book Writing, Spew Then Organize

(I'm not sure if this is supposed to be a good writing technique, or just something Martin manages to get away with!)

It works very well if you have a muse. I don't (and more's the pity) but I know people who do.

A 'muse'?

(from Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)

muse (IMAGINARY FORCE) noun [C] LITERARY an imaginary being or force that gives someone ideas and helps them to write, paint or make music: The muse has left me - I haven't written any poetry for months! Juliet was not only the painter's best model but also his muse (= the person who causes him to have the most ideas for his work).

Muse noun [C] LITERARY in ancient Greek and Roman stories, one of the nine goddesses who were believed to give encouragement in different areas of literature, art and music

Gerald Weinberg does something similar. He writes pages at a time, and files them. Eventually, some collection of writings form the sketch of a book.

I once read that Karl Friederich Gauss did the same thing - he edited a journal at one point and received a manuscript with a proof in it. He then digs through his own pile of papers, pulls out a half-finished paper of his own that expanded upon the proof that was submitted, finishes it and publishes it too. -- Kyle Brown

Pepys Wiki supports Fowler Writing Method, without cluttering sheets of paper on the floor ;-) -- Fridemar Pache

This is basically Peter Elbow's writing method, explained in his book Writing Without Teachers, which I highly recommend. -- Apoorva Muralidhara