Lessons learned from carpentry

Ultimately, literature is nothing but carpentry. With both you are working with reality, a material just as hard as wood.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I’ve always been interested in carpentry.  I’m unsure what it was that initially drove my interest, but as a young teen, I was spending a lot of time looking through the Reader’s Digest Complete Do-It-Yourself Manual.  I aspired to create DIY projects that would be as beautiful and functional as the ones from the book.

It wasn’t until a few months ago that I acted on these aspirations.  After some time, I realized that carpentry was very different from the other things I do - writing,  art-making, and even living.  Carpentry allowed me to experience some things that were unknown to me, things that I wish to implement and recreate in my creative work.

The need to relax

Nervousness is something that I have a daily struggle with.  In a relaxed state, I am articulate and rational, but when faced with stressful situations, it’s an unpredictable hit or miss.  Even if I try to calm myself internally, my body reveals my true mental state.  My hands shake and my speech is broken.

My first attempts at carpentry were equally nervous - I grasped the saw handle too tightly, my teeth were clenched as I worked.  However, gripping the saw handle too tightly makes it vulnerable to unexpected movements I make.  Plus, all of this was an unnecessary waste of energy.

It took a while for me to notice, but if you have good tools, you only need to trust in them and let gravity do the work.  Understanding this made carpentry almost effortless for me.  What used to feel like hard, tiring work now feels more like relaxation.  I can now spend more time on my carpentry and not feel as exhausted after.

Being present

The writing process, for me, is doing multiple things at once - planning, writing, and researching.  Also, when I’m writing, I can’t slow down. I need to type my thoughts as I’m thinking them or else I’ll lose my way.  If I don’t check a resource as I remember it, it’s forgotten.  To write was to enter the horrible world of fast-paced multitasking.

Carpentry, on the other hand, allows me to focus on the task at hand.  First, I need a very clear picture of what I want to accomplish.  This is done with a simple pen and paper, or even Google Sketchup.  Then, I need to take measurements.  After that, its a series of singular tasks that each require me to be focused on the present moment.  I can’t have my mind wander as I’m driving a nail to a panel, I could hit my thumb.  I shouldn’t think about the finished product as I’m sawing, or my cut will be askew.  If my hands are working, my mind is focused on making the hands work well.

Also, in creative work I’m so used to the activity of my mind that I tend to forget and ignore my body.  I don’t want to sound like a Buddhist wannabe, but carpentry has allowed me to be mindful of my body, which I feel is a starting point in grounding oneself to the present moment.

Carpentry and creativity

What does carpentry have to do with creative work?  Maybe a lot.  Maybe nothing.  But I know I could benefit from implementing some of the lessons I learned from carpentry into my creative process.

Earlier, I mentioned how I multitask with my writing work.  My experience in carpentry gave me an idea on how to become more focused as a writer.  Now, I do all the research and note-taking all day every Monday and write the rest of the week.  I used to prefer a more intuitive approach, but that compromised the quality of my work because I didn’t fully respect the planning process.

Don’t get me wrong, the purely intuitive process is great - I’ve written a couple of stories that felt more like channeled material than something I got out of hard work and sweat.  But opportunities like these are few and far between.  Passion for writing and art-making is best expressed and revealed when you’re willing to do the work during the ‘difficult’ days.  Here’s a relevant Murakami quote I got from Dan Pink:

Writers who are blessed with inborn talent can freely write novels no matter what they do–or don’t do… Occasionally you’ll find someone like that, but, unfortunately, that category won’t include me. I have to pound the rock with a chisel and dig out of a deep hole before I can locate the source of creativity. To write a novel I have to drive myself hard physically and use a lot of time and effort.
Haruki Murakami

In other words, the creative process is mostly hard work.  I can sit around, rely on intuition and work on crap.  Or I can take the research and planning aspect more seriously and be truly involved in what I create.

Also, when I’m writing, I fail to be fully present because I’m always afraid that my final work won’t be good enough.  At the back of my mind, that’s all I’m thinking.  I don’t trust my ‘tools’, so to speak.  This becomes detrimental to the work because I keep editing myself along the way - even if there’s plenty of time for that later.  In fact, dedicated editing time will make the work better.  Plan, measure, cut, refine.  Like carpentry, I need to take writing one step at a time.

As for relaxation, this is something I have to learn if I want to get more mileage out of each hour I write.  By pounding loudly on the keyboard and not being mindful of the unnecessary stress I put on my body, I won’t be able to write for as long as I need to.  I still struggle with this daily, but I hope that with more time and awareness, my nervousness is something I can overcome.

So relax, trust in the tools, and focus on the moment.  These three things can make us better at the work we do.  The next time I take on a creative task, I’ll know to approach it with the mind of a carpenter.

Image by lraine from sxc.hu

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2. Work First, Tools Second