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Taking a break from the chain-gang
Aug. 2nd, 2007 09:54 pmThat probably doesn't even mean what I mean it to mean, but at this point, my ability to get words to do anything approaching what I'm hoping for from them is long gone. Have just come back within word limit (thirty-eight fricking hundred and fifty, which is nowhere near enough) so it's clearly time to stop for a moment before I undo it all with just a few words to clarify here and a few more to explain why the hell I'm making that point there and before I know, I'm back over 4,000 and counting.
For all who've ever struggled to edit a piece of writing that is struggling back hard, I offer a term from the knitting world: to tink. I love this , and did so before knowing whence it came, and even while in the process of tinking, literally (in my knitting) and figuratively (wretched essay-to-be). In knitting it means to knit backwards (get it? Knit backwards? K.N.I.T. => T.I.N.K. Obvious, hunh? Yeah, I didn't get it until I read it somewhere.) stitch by careful stitch, until you reach the dropped stitch or other mistake, fixed it, and are then free to re-do the stitches you've just undone. The joy of it is the fact that after all the un-knitting, fixing and re-knitting, you're no farther on in your WIP, though at least you've rectified the obvious mistake. Or one obvious mistake. Even though you're unknitting it's still MUCH MORE FUN to tink with knitting needles than with pen and printout (or keyboard and screen). But somehow it makes me feel marginally happier to say I'm tinking than to say I'm engaged in a bloody battle with the words I've written which will not make the ideas I have in my head clearly and lucidly and in the manner in which the many outlines I've written to plan the wretched thing indicate will be perfectly sensible...
On a related note, but Not My Fault - I maligned poor old Charlotte M. Yonge a while ago - not that she cares much, at least. Or maybe I didn't do it in public, as I can't find the LJ post with the quote, taken from John Rowe Townsend's Written for Children. He says (referring to Yonge): "for as she said, 'self-denial is always best, and in a doubtful case the most disagreeable is always the safest'". A line which was very useful, and did a nice job backing up a point that needed making. Except then I wondered where exactly she'd said this, found he hadn't given a citation, googled and discovered it wasn't 'as she said' at all - in fact, it's a line from a book, and the character saying it is corrected by a governess, and admits herself she's not expressing what she feels very well. I had to spend about half an hour discovering all this, and am not impressed! Confusing a narrator with an author is a basic mistake, but confusing an author's character with that author is really bad. But my apology is hereby being made to Charlotte's shade. If anyone feels like passing the message along, it'd be appreciated, while I get back to tinking...
For all who've ever struggled to edit a piece of writing that is struggling back hard, I offer a term from the knitting world: to tink. I love this , and did so before knowing whence it came, and even while in the process of tinking, literally (in my knitting) and figuratively (wretched essay-to-be). In knitting it means to knit backwards (get it? Knit backwards? K.N.I.T. => T.I.N.K. Obvious, hunh? Yeah, I didn't get it until I read it somewhere.) stitch by careful stitch, until you reach the dropped stitch or other mistake, fixed it, and are then free to re-do the stitches you've just undone. The joy of it is the fact that after all the un-knitting, fixing and re-knitting, you're no farther on in your WIP, though at least you've rectified the obvious mistake. Or one obvious mistake. Even though you're unknitting it's still MUCH MORE FUN to tink with knitting needles than with pen and printout (or keyboard and screen). But somehow it makes me feel marginally happier to say I'm tinking than to say I'm engaged in a bloody battle with the words I've written which will not make the ideas I have in my head clearly and lucidly and in the manner in which the many outlines I've written to plan the wretched thing indicate will be perfectly sensible...
On a related note, but Not My Fault - I maligned poor old Charlotte M. Yonge a while ago - not that she cares much, at least. Or maybe I didn't do it in public, as I can't find the LJ post with the quote, taken from John Rowe Townsend's Written for Children. He says (referring to Yonge): "for as she said, 'self-denial is always best, and in a doubtful case the most disagreeable is always the safest'". A line which was very useful, and did a nice job backing up a point that needed making. Except then I wondered where exactly she'd said this, found he hadn't given a citation, googled and discovered it wasn't 'as she said' at all - in fact, it's a line from a book, and the character saying it is corrected by a governess, and admits herself she's not expressing what she feels very well. I had to spend about half an hour discovering all this, and am not impressed! Confusing a narrator with an author is a basic mistake, but confusing an author's character with that author is really bad. But my apology is hereby being made to Charlotte's shade. If anyone feels like passing the message along, it'd be appreciated, while I get back to tinking...
