In his absorbing history of American Art on BBC 4, Andrew Graham Dixon described what he called Jackson Pollock's "calculated incoherence". I thought it was an interesting phrase. Its neatly differentiates art from mere accident. If you kick a paint can over you get a splash, but Pollock's intention of capturing the artist's motion and rhythm in paint is something altogether different.
It's a useful thought to have in your head when you are writing. Without calculation at a profound, artistic level, stream of consciousness would be reduced to rambling, but there's a great deal more to Virginia Woolf, James Joyce et al than that. If your own work is to stand on robust and intriguing foundations, the reader needs to be aware of your intention in writing. You need to make clear to them (by means of a well-honed plot and vibrant characters) what your message is and how you are communicating it. You could, in theory, get away with using crap dialogue, as long as you make it clear that it is appropriate to and indivisible from the character who is speaking it. A major part of the process of "calculation" lies in the editing: distilling and refining.
Part of writing is down to happy accident, but it's not just that. If you are to have any resilience as a writer, you need to write with the confidence that comes with making your intentions plain.
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