Monday, June 9, 2014

My Year of Darwin 6/9/2014: Darwin begins the real struggle: writing

 Charles Darwin


"I am just now beginning to discover the difficulty of expressing one's ideas on paper. As long as it consists solely of description it is pretty easy; but where reasoning comes into play, to make a proper connection, a clearness & a moderate fluency, is to me, as I have said, a difficulty of which I had no idea." Charles Darwin, letter to sister Caroline, April 29th 1836

Well Darwin, welcome to my world. Darwin had been dealing with an immense collection from the American tropics and much less seems to be collected (or even noted) from the Pacific Islands so he is going through his geology notes and creating a narrative. Swearing ensues. 

I wonder if Darwin felt this struggle his whole life. Certainly I do. Even with practice writing science just moves slowly and tortuously. An accepted manuscript is more a relief than anything else. 






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