{"id":2351,"date":"2022-10-26T06:58:33","date_gmt":"2022-10-26T14:58:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/?p=2351"},"modified":"2022-10-25T17:02:24","modified_gmt":"2022-10-26T01:02:24","slug":"process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/2022\/10\/26\/process\/","title":{"rendered":"Process"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"I love learning how to do stuff. When I was a kid I had weaving lessons the way that my peers had piano or violin lessons. I taught myself to sew when I was a teenager. Taught myself to knit. And when I see a recipe for something I\u2019ve never made \u2014 particularly if it\u2019s a fairly basic thing (like cheese) or a really complex thing (baklava! beef Wellington!) my thumbs start twitching. It\u2019s not that I need home made cheese \u2014 I\u2019m pretty much the only cheese eater in my house \u2014 but the urge to know\u00a0<\/span>how<\/em>\u00a0<\/span>to do it is nearly overwhelming.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This is the reason I have found myself doing things as foolish as refinishing my own hardwood floors or stripping wall paper: it\u2019s not that I\u2019m an insane DIY-er; I’m learning the process (also learning that I\u00a0<\/span>never<\/em>\u00a0<\/span>want to do it again). By the same token, I\u2019ve taken stage combat and fencing classes (never real martial arts, mind you, but I can use a quarterstaff, a rapier, a broadsword, or pretend to beat you to a pulp) so I’d\u00a0<\/span>know<\/em>. And don’t get me started on assembling Ikea furniture. \u00a0It\u2019s like crack:\u00a0<\/span>look! This goes there! Cool!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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What licenses me to do these things? Being a writer. A few months ago I was talking to a group of Girl Scouts about my career, and someone asked me what the best part of being a writer was. I don’t know what the girls were expecting, but when I said \u201cresearch!\u201d they looked as if I\u2019d said \u201cspinach!\u201d But other than being a scientist or a beta tester, I know of no other profession that encourages \u2014\u00a0<\/span>requires<\/em>\u00a0<\/span>\u2014 that I find out how things work. \u00a0That can mean plumbing the depths of biology or astronomy, or reading (as I currently am) about women’s legal status in medieval Italy. It can mean reading, or it can mean, for me, getting out a hammer and nails and building a chair, just to see if I can, and so I’ll know the smell and the noises and the feel of wood under my hands.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In the end, writing is all about the process too.\u00a0With each project, book or story, I find out different things about how I write and what I –and the project– need. \u00a0Getting to learn new processes is just an extra! added! bonus!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u00a92011 This post was originally published on the Book View Caf\u00e9 Blog<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I love learning how to do stuff. When I was a kid I had weaving lessons the way that my peers had piano or violin lessons. I taught myself to sew when I was a teenager. Taught myself to knit. And when I see a recipe for something I\u2019ve never made \u2014 particularly if it\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2351"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2351\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2355,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2351\/revisions\/2355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}