Sunday is my day to catch up on reading. Since I read everything but the Swedish newspaper, catching up could mean learning how to use glue on horse shoes for my farrier business, the assembly instructions for the new dining room flooring I am going to install, or losing myself in a novel.
My focus this time is about learning how to write. I’ve been told my writing has a wicked sense of humor. However, I’ve been so caught up the technique that I am stalled in my writing.
When I finished farrier school and began apprenticing, the first question I asked was ‘when does it stop hurting.’ The farrier I was apprenticing under laughed and said ‘when you are dead.’ He was right about that. Not the dead part, but after 10 years as a full time farrier, I can attest to the pain part.
Preparation is everything in farrier work. If the horses’ foot is not level or balanced there is nothing you can do to get the shoe to fit properly. I apprenticed for a year before I started nailing a shoe on a horse.
Putting a shoe on a horse is kind of like nailing upside down on the deck of a ship that is sailing through a hurricane. There is a 1/16th of an inch area, called the ‘white line’ where the nail goes into the hoof. The nails are tapered on one side, as they are designed to angle outward. Hold the nail the wrong way and it will enter the sole, causing pain and a lot of bleeding. Tap, tap, tap. By the third tap, the sound will be different, meaning the nail reached the laminae, or hoof wall.
Two to three more hammer strikes and the nail does its’ angling thing and comes out through the laminae. Tap too lightly, the nail slides between the laminae and the sole instead of coming out through the hoof wall. Tap too hard and the nail comes out through the hoof wall too high up, causing pain to the horse, and more bleeding. Hammer strikes have to be straight on the nail head, or the nail twists, making it impossible for the nail head to ‘seat’ or sit in the crease of the shoe. Six nails per shoe, 24 nails per horse.
My next question to my mentor was ‘How long does it take to perfect nailing a shoe on?’ My mentor responded ‘Oh, about 20,000 nails.’ What?! The MBA in me did the math. That meant 833 horses with a full set of shoes completed, billed, and paid for with sub-par work.
Sub. Par. Work. Sub-par work in the farrier world means both short and long term muscular-skeletal damage, lameness, and chronic pain issues. For the owner/rider that means additional veterinary bills, potential for injury, the loss of purse money in competition, or a completely un-rideable horse, a.k.a. ‘Pasture Art’. No stress or pressure in my business at all!
I’ve been writing since I was a kid, as back burner projects, or the ‘when I have time’, kind of thing. My first fiction short story was printed in Horse of Course Magazine when I was 11. However, in 2015, writing is going to the front burner.
So, I stumble up the gangway and am back on the damn ship in a hurricane again. Instead of trying to nail upside down on the Weather Deck, I’ve been thrown to the Quarter Deck to learn world building. I swallow some sea sickness pills, tighten my life jacket, zip up my slicker, and climb to the Crow’s Nest to see what is next. BAM! I fall to the Tween Deck to learn about dialogue, but before I can get a good sense of how to use dialogue, the ship hits a wave off the 40 degree angle, and I am tossed up to the Bridge.
I sit quietly on The Bridge and look around, dripping and nodding. Not a bad place to be. I am out of the wind and rain. The Bridge is in the center of the ship, topside. There is less cavitation here. The only other place on the ship that has less movement is the Medical Deck.
The Bridge has access to the Internet. I type S.O.S. into the BING search bar, and up pops www.thewritepractice.com. I click on the link. Maybe this guy Joe Bunting can get me outta here. Or give me directions to The Galley.
Instead, I find I’ve come full circle. He doesn’t know how to get me off the ship because I don’t know my longitude or latitude. But he does give me two key pieces to the puzzle.
The first thing Joe Bunting tells me is that ‘Perfect is no place for a writer.’ Bunting claims that it is not a writers’ job to write perfect sentences, and to stop thinking that it is.
My interpretation of this advice is to learn to write when I am being a writer. Then edit when I am being an editor. But don’t mix the two.
The second thing Joe Bunting shares with me is a question he had at a writers conference, ‘How long does it take a writer to find their voice?’ Joe’s answer was ‘4 or 5 novels.’ WHAT?! The MBA in me does the math. That is nearly 500,000 words.
Learning a craft or a trade takes time and so much practice. My farrier mentor always seemed to know when I was discouraged. He would tell me that, if being a farrier was easy anyone could do it. Then he would buy me a Milky Way Dark candy bar.
Me? It looks like I am stuck on this ship for awhile. I’m going to the Galley to look for chocolate, and hope I don’t end up on the Flush Deck. For those word smiths who like palindrome’s, I have one for you. There is a deck name on a ship that is a palindrome. Anyone have the answer?
by Cheryl Swayne
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