The Eminent Ed Fowler, ABS Master Bladesmith and senior statesman of the hand-forged knifemakers' contingent, takes this phrase as his mantra. It's an especially good fit for people who want to be writers, and even better for writers like me, who have a neurotic tendency toward editing and proofing.
I proof everything I read, unless I work very hard at Not Proofing, and I also proof everything I write, while I'm writing it, unless again I try not to. Makes for a very slow first draft of anything.
This neurosis also tends to make me hypercritical of most things I read, as if a hastily-scribbled stickynote memo from a manufacturing engineer is actually supposed to make grammatical sense.
Ed's mantra helps me move away from all that. Very odd, since it overlays everything that writing teachers have been telling me, from junior high all the way up to the awesome Fran Sherwood. Small wonder it hasn't sunk in yet. This approach of his works well in bladesmithing, and can be transferred easily to writing.
Like so: when making the blade, Ed says, Do Not forge to final dimensions. Leave yourself some meat on the bone for the finishing operations. The important thing is to get the rough shape of the thing out there, existing and filling the space it was supposed to fill out.
The time for agonizing over the placement of commas is during rewrites, when you are honing the razor’s edge of your prose.
After you bring your ..thing, your story, paper, or pattern-welded Zatoichi blade, into existence, once the you have fixed its shape in space the way it was in your imagination, you can pretty it up, take away things that are still a little rough or ugly, do some polishing & tempering.
I have really started to like this comparison of two dissimilar occupations. It’s helped me think about both activities in a little different way. I think it was E.B. White who spoke of decisions made in the the heat of composition. It might not not be quite as hot as a smith’s forge, but it’s hot enough to mold mutable ideas into new and pleasing shapes.
And that, I’d say, is pretty hot.
Crowdfunded Biofuel Research
11 years ago
It seems enough to, maybe, just say I like where this is going. I will go on though. The most influential people in my life have always been folks who have worked hard for not much at all and have experiences that cannot be taught, only lived. I appreciate a truck driver's thoughts (my father was a truck driver/farmer/logger)and the perspective of tough and creative people in general. good luck with this.
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