Where did it come from?
It is difficult to identify exactly where the inspiration or idea for cell-writing came from. I do remember feeling frustrated one day with the typical process of writing and feeling determined to devise an alternative. I do remember thinking one evening how nice it would be to find my own way of writing; a way of writing that was like no other – so far as I knew – and one that would work better for me. Somehow I gravitated towards using a spreadsheet wondering if that might be used in what was surely a quite unusual way. After a bit of experimentation, I found that this approach seemed to have potential. It seems to have grown from there. When, soon after, I was called upon to write something for publication, I decided to give it a trial run. I found that cell-writing was indeed a viable technique for producing an initial draft and getting everything in place.
I also remember thinking to myself at an early stage that it would never work and expecting to have to give up on the idea as a whimsical waste of time. However, I could not quite let it go and once I had tried it out in earnest I never looked back. It is now the way I typically work. I cannot see this ever changing.
The Bricolage Approach
I have come to realise that I am an inherent bricoleur. A bricolage is something that has been pieced together, sometimes from a variety of different components. A bricoleur is, therefore, somebody who collects and pieces things together. That seems to describe my approach to a lot of things.
It may be questionable whether any writer really works in an entirely linear way. There is an element of the bricoleur in everybody. Over the years, I have seen people give talks using index cards each containing brief bits of information. 'Bite-sized' bits of information were committed to cards which could be read out in an order the speaker considered suitable. I have seen various software packages aimed at writers that builds on the index card metaphor.
I was once reliably informed there are some who use Microsoft's PowerPoint application for writing. It appears that they use slides as they would index cards writing separate points on each. The order of these note card slides can then be changed as necessary.
Each of these methods produces cards or slides containing information set out in one or more paragraphs. This is in contrast to cell-writing. My personal need was for a method where each of my sentences was separate so that their order could be changed as necessary. I suspect that being told of this use for PowerPoint may have influenced me to wonder whether something like Excel could be used for writing too.