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Notes -
Right now my process is to pick a book that I have already read that excites me in some way: a book I want to talk to people about. Almost always non-fiction, because then you have a lot of information from the book that you can summarize and interpret. It has to be a book I've already read and am very familiar with; the first time I tried entering the contest I picked a book I hadn't read yet that I was very interested in, and I ended up not finishing it by the time the deadline comes. No need to make it harder for yourself! Go with a known quantity.
Once I've picked the book I reread it, taking notes as I go. I put in bookmarks on places that have quotes I would like to put in the review, and as I go I have a document keeping track of all the ideas I get as I read: that it would be neat to talk about this, or about how this connects to that, etc. Just reading the book with the review in mind. I feel free to skim, it doesn't have to be a thorough reading. Just enough to get the juices going and find quotes. Once I have enough ideas written down to fill a report, I start writing.
First I outline, which is just taking the reading notes I made and then organizing them into a structure that makes sense. I always cut a lot of ideas out here, if they don't fit into the report very well. Ideally all the ideas should flow together and be cohesive, not random.
Then I write. That's the hard part for me, actually saying "this is the time I am going to write" and then doing that. But the writing itself isn't hard, I follow the outline and then either stick to it or diverge from it as the muse pulls me. I often find out halfway through writing it that it would be better to jettison sections of the outline, or add bits in that weren't planned. Just like re-reading the book gets the ideas flowing, writing the report also gets your mind making connections you didn't notice earlier.
Then ideally I would wait a couple days and then review and edit. This time I had to edit it the next day, which is not ideal: you want to forget what you wrote so when you read it you see what you actually wrote instead of what you remember writing. Ideally I'd do two or more editing passes like this. Then the deadline comes and you have to ship it.
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