Kneading and Editing

Hands. Hands, hands, hands. People are meant to use their hands; why else would we have them? To pound on a keyboard? I suppose that is a valid use. However, that is not how this subject came to mind; it all started with bread making.

             Baking is one of my best buddies. Bread making is a little more involved, but oh so worth the while. Pugliese bread does not require kneading, which is the first bread I taught myself to make. I didn’t choose the recipe because of the “no-knead” factor; I chose it because I like the stuff. But when I was in Spain, my Spanish mamá taught me how to make bread in a different, more efficient way, which brought kneading back into the game. Now, having made pizza with my family for years, kneading is not a foreign concept, and I happen to enjoy it, so I’ve rolled with this new (now quite familiar) manner of bread making. I could go on and on about bread, but I’ll spare you.

            Kneading is one of those “ya-do-it-with-your-hands” type things. Duh, right? Well, apparently, bread machines take that out of the equation—I didn’t know that until today. (And that’s more than okay; for people with arthritic hands, it’s a joy.) I couldn’t stand that. But there are many ways in which we can (and do) use our hands; and I hope we continue to.

            There are many professions that require it: massage therapy, physical therapy, chiropractic, painting, construction, etc. But also, writing. Shoot, Annie, you say, you’re feeling particularly intelligent today, aren’t you? Nah. Thanks, though.

            By writing, I don’t simply mean picking up a pen and scribbling across the paper, or chicken scratching a pencil to a nub, or doing a tap routine on the keyboard. Nope. The process—that is what I’m talking about.

There are folks who have this immensely spacious plot of land upstairs, on which they plant corn, run tractors, graze cattle, build barns . . . These people develop an essay in their minds, tweak the argument and art, and send it, when ready out the end of their ballpoint pen. Damn. (That’s not me.)

Then there are the Write-Rewriters. Meaning? Twenty tries later, we’re starting to take out the editing pen, and kicking ourselves for still having things so out of control. Expand. Remove or compress. Clarify. And then, we’re busy hating our past self for those marks, wishing the additions would simply pop into our minds. Meaning, what we want to write doesn’t order nicely or at all in our heads, write first, think second. And there are the super crazy Write-Rewriters that wring their hands raw over one sentence. (That’s me.)

That is tactile writing. I just can’t let it go. It’s environmentally unfriendly. I print out a tree with all of the drafting and restarting. But it’s working the writing over and over and over again the way one works dough over and over and over again. Then, you let it rise. But once you put it in the oven, dang, you had better hope you’ve done it right, ‘cause that’s that. Send it off to the editor . . . again, you’d better hope it’s perfecto (and that the editor isn’t gluten-intolerant).