A Recursive Process

Every morning at around 5 a.m., PBS broadcasts shows on English composition. I believe the general target audience is high school and/or college students, but beginner writers could benefit as well. On one such episode, they discussed writing as a recursive process.

Recursion is the process a procedure goes through when one of the steps of the procedure involves rerunning the procedure. A procedure that goes through recursion is said to be recursive. As writers, we don’t a specific beginning and ending to our process. We can start wherever we want. What makes it recursive is when we shift back to previous steps such as research or editing.

I have to say it’s nice to be able to put a name to it.

Andrea will soon be evoking her recursive process when she finally decides to edit the stack of stories on her desk. Check out her website.