Meta-Writing

What is meta-writing?

Metawriting, a.k.a. metadiscourse, is writing about writing. Of course the real challenge of metawriting is the fact that in order to write about writing you must also think about writing.
The purpose of metawriting is to help the writer more fully understand what happens when writing so as to better manage future writing tasks and understand the writer's individual strengths and weaknesses.
Many struggling writers think the only way they can improve is for someone else to help them become a better writer, but in truth a good writing teacher is more of a coach or guide and knows when to get out of the writer's way. The path to better writing begins with metawriting. Even if you have the best writing teacher in the world there will come a day when you need to leave that teacher behind and write on your own. That is why good writing teachers prepare you for that day by helping you become a self-regulated writer. Key to this process is metawriting -- your intensive, thoughtful study of your own writing.

Meta is a Greek word with interesting contextual meaning. I like the “transcending” definition (http://www.answers.com/meta): more comprehension. In my line of work, I deal in metadata. This is data describing other data. For example, for a database table, metadata would be a description of what kind of data a particular field collects. “Numbers of Impressions paid for in advance per 1000 views needy by the BAs for quarterly analysis.” Tags are a type of metadata, same for JPG properties.

Meta-writing, then, is thinking about writing in order to understand writing. For today, I am going to narrow the definition: meta-writing is thinking about the writing industry in order to understand how to obtain an audience for telling stories. In other words, thinking about writing in order to become a published writer.

And some people really suck at this. “Really suck” being a technical term.

Before I go on, let me apologize in advance for sticking together three separate and related, but not equal, systems to illustrate my point. Let’s talk about these:

Writing: The actual process of storytelling as it pertains to writing a story for a reader to consume.

Industry: The system in which consumes writing and exchanges monies (via publishers) and readers for writing (via authors).

Meta: Meta-writing, the process of thinking about the writing industry in order to understand its underlying motivations.

Follow me so far? Swear to God, I am sober here. I have not even had sugar this evening (yet)!

Why would you want to engage in meta-writing? Understanding the underlying workings of the writing industry can make you a better writer.