vesterberg.se

A while ago I finished reading Weinberg on Writing – The Fieldstone Method by Gerald Weinberg. I have always been interested in storytelling. When my children were small, we dreamed up stories and fantasy creatures, each one crazier than the other. I used to have secret plans of making children’s books. Writing has for a long time been on my list of personal development areas.

Since I have read other books of this author and like them, I bought The Fieldstone Method. In it, Weinberg manages to clearly describe the creative process of writing, step by step. The writing style is very practical, with a lot of exercises in each chapter. He has regular training seminars on this subject.

Fieldstone process

Weinberg uses the metaphor of building with fieldstones to illustrate the process. When you build with fieldstones you first walk around in the fields and gather a lot of stones. After that you line them up for inspection. Every stone is rough, uneven and unique as nature made them. When building, you take them one by one and try to find a fitting place. Sometimes you have to do some trimming or even cutting to get a smooth wall. Perhaps after a while, you must go out collecting stones again to fill some obstinate holes. The result is a unique wall that’s not as boring and predictable as a brick wall.

Writing process

Gathering fieldstones is catching the ideas that pop up in your mind. You catch them by writing down phrases or key words that carries the idea. Ideas can come haphazardly or in any order, but you just hang on to what is coming. Don’t try to organize or trim them at the same time. After a while you have a pile of interesting thoughts and reflections that might end up in several articles. As next activity, go through your ideas and organize; see how they can fit together and arrange them in some order. Lastly trimming is necessary; looking at the flow of language.

The metaphor he uses is spot-on. Weinberg states that creativity is a non-linear process. Reading is a linear process; most of the time you read a book from beginning to end, but creating a book is different. There is an inherent randomness in creating, because of how our brain works. Weinberg talks about different activities in the writing process; briefly he calls them gathering, organizing and trimming. You stay with one activity for as long as you have ideas. When the flow stops, you change to some of the other activities. Don’t force yourself to continue. Different activities need different states of mind. Gathering is unlike organizing and organizing is unlike trimming; the focus is different.

Software development process

I can’t help comparing Weinberg’s method to the prevalent way of creating programs. In software development we talk about working incrementally and with many iterations. That means that we build little by little and go back and forth between different phases, instead of first doing all the analyzing, after that all the design and lastly all the implementation. Software industry has found out that this way of working is consistent with man’s creative abilities and is the best way to handle complexity and the ever changing requirements.

Precious stones

Here is another word of wisdom from the book; Look for stones with emotional energy. Weinberg discusses how you can use your inner being to find the real gems. Watch your own emotional response to your stones. Don’t look so much at the exterior, you will trim and polish them later. Go for stones that awaken something in you.

Understanding through writing

To me writing is very much part of the process of understanding a subject. I don’t wait to write about something until I have fully understood. I write, and during the writing process, during the gathering, organization and trimming the deeper understanding comes. Rearranging and rephrasing becomes a powerful tool of reflection.

Weinberg’s book made explicit the way of working that I partly already used. It has deepened my understanding and enhanced my creativity. Now, I can “go with the flow” in a better way. If I would summarize with a sentence I would say “practical wisdom”. I really recommend it.

I have discovered that I can help my thinking process by expressing my thoughts in words, either by telling someone or by writing it down. It seems that deeper understanding can be birthed when you explain what you are trying to understand. Expressing things in words are like kneading a dough. Something eatable might be the result! So this blog is a kneading of words and thoughts and even if no one reads it, I have gained understanding myself.