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[ 9 minute read ]
Weaving, Sieving, 3D Printing, or Doing Jigsaws?
Without exception, I write blog and forum posts without planning anything or editing such as changing sentences or moving paragraphs: I don't have to heavily edit; I can write blog posts from top to bottom without really knowing what I will write, even though I have forgotten where I started (not quite). I ramble on until I remember where the beginning is, and then I love to make the whole writing journey circuitous by finishing where I started. For me, it is fun. Only the subject is important, and despite me just now saying I can't remember where I started, I always remember the subject, so I chuck anything in that vaguely adds to the point I want to make. I never remove anything I have written either. I start writing and then stop when I have finished. I only change typos, spelling and grammar. Absolute truth. Do you know how I can do this? I talk in a very similar way. I know what subject I should be on and I know what has been said and I am listening to any questions that arise from both, what hasn't been said, and what has been said. I only want to stop talking when I, or we, get back to the beginning. For me, that is the best conversation ever!
Of course, I am an Open University student and so I am somewhat constrained in what they want me to write, you know, for assessments and how they want me to write (essays or creatively). Like most people, I struggle because I don't know the subject well enough to use a sieve technique of making an essay. That is how I talk and write, like using a sieve, though many people might say 'using a filter'. I am not unique in this: Men talk differently when women cannot hear them, and women reciprocate. Adults don't swear in front of their bosses or children, etc. So, I have just highlighted what results we get from using a filter. But before the filter is applied, sieving must be done.
'Wait! What?'
My lexicon is fairly large and I have to select just one word from a collection that are similar in meaning (choice). Incredibly difficult, because it has to fit the context. Everybody does it, though. The point I am failing to make is that a whole stream of sentences are arriving in our heads simultaneously, and we have to get them to fit the previous one if we hope to make sense to someone listening. However, we don't have to make any real sense and random sentences and digressions are not usually trimmed out beforehand. That is how people talk. They expect the recipient to do the sieving.
'Here is a whole bunch of junk with some good ideas thrown in. Be a good chap and extract the good bits, would you?'
I don't think I do that as much as many other people. I do a lot of the sieving before I speak. So, I pre-think. People say to me, 'Why do you talk like that?' or 'I knew it was you because of the way you talk.' even though they don't recognise the sound of my voice. That means if I know a subject well enough I can just write stuff on a subject, and THEN edit it to fit word-count parameters. Job Done! So what? I bet you all think that is what we all do, Huh? I don't think so; because I have been thinking, and when I think, y'all better adapt.
There are other ways to write posts, blogs, and stuff.
Weaving
On a loom there is the warp and the weft. The warp are the parallel pieces of string that traditionally go from the machine towards the machine user or weaver, and the weft is the string that follows a shuttle thrown from left to right. The weave is the pattern made by how the warp and weft strings interact.
Most of us know how weaving is done on a loom and can imagine that a piece of cloth is woven much as an old printer printing line after line of ink on paper. If I just held one finger down on a single key on my laptop keyboard a repeating series of the same letter would, on my screen, go from left to right and then automatically go to the next line down and go from left to right again, until something else happens. It would just be a normal weave like a 'sheet'. No-one would read it. Lifting only some of the warp strings on a loom would simply be like pressing a different key on my keyboard. But more broadly, in weaving we can create a picture, with different coloured strings and by lifting different warp strings at different times. Yet, we are still working from the beginning to the end of the woven product until we need to stop. The important thing, to focus on here, is that there must be a plan and absolutely no changes can be made after the weave of different coloured strings and the lifting of the warp strings at different times has been completed, or really at any time during the process.
In fact, so far, this is how I have been writing this post, weaving. However, because there is no pattern; I mean, I really have no desire to highlight any passage, so there is no pattern or recognisable shape; there is only a decision to only use certain colours at specific times in a rudimentary way; at the very beginning, in the middle, and at the very end. In this post, these are the paragraphs that follow headings.
While it is possible to write endlessly like this, sometimes I might get an itching to refer back to something I have already written to strengthen a point. Well, I suppose, make real, a bridge so strong that it becomes a feature. While texture can be created with weaving, and I suppose loops might be made (I think that is crochet or macrame), something more mechanical needs to be used to fabricate a post.
3D Printing
Like an olden-days ink-jet printer going back and forth from left to right and advancing one line at a time, 3D printers do the same, except they go over where they have already been. In an essay that would mean, when we first think of it, repetition, which we all know we shouldn't do. Perhaps, if we think a bit on it we might think of higher and lower planes, which would be areas of greater stress, focus, or emphasis. Making a bridge though is tricky for a 3D printer; it has to add temporary supports and make sure that those supports can be removed in the final edit, by the 3D printer operator. (came back here to edit in 'by the 3D printer owner)
What I am doing now is looking in my memory, while I write, for somewhere in the previous text for somewhere I can bridge back to from here, but I am having no success. Ah, I have it! The title! The word order in the title. Because I just now temporarily wrote about jigsaws in my head in such a way as to be islands of stress, focus or emphasis I can bridge forward. I ruined the surprise or the Wow factor, but I AM just writing as I plan (The only plan so far).
So, with 3D printing a layer of resin is laid, and then layers of resin are laid over each previous layer until the object has reached a certain height and is finished. I am imaging Tower Bridge in London, which to those who don't know it is the one where the span of the bridge lifts in two parts to allow ships to pass underneath on the River Thames. It is fairly functional looking, squarish really, and has an upper span that joins the towers on each side of the river. The first thing we notice that a 3D printer has done when creating a tiny Tower Bridge would be two square islands of resin. Later, these will need to be linked to create the spans of the bridge, or the road of the actual Tower Bridge. As far as I know, 3D printing has to create supports for all the spans. In an essay this is hard to do. Certainly, it would take considerable planning. I hate planning, so I am going to move onto the last section of this post and once done, come back and edit some former sentences in this bit about 3D printing instead. The link or 'bridge' will be 'islands'.
The two sentences in italics were edited in, in the final draft.
Jigsaws
When I don't know a subject at all, I have to take notes. These notes are really in a linear form. I can do mind-maps, but rarely do. Usually, for an essay I will write chunks of text that I know I will need to edit. However, the interesting thing is how we decide which pieces of a jigsaw we group together to make islands of colour and which bits make a frame for all the pieces, you know the pieces with the (normally) straight edges. When I do a jigsaw, like most people I find all the straight-edge pieces first, and link them accordingly, From the picture on the box we can find associated pieces such as the green for some tress, or pinks for the flowers, or something. These form the highlights of the picture on the box in terms of attraction, but in an essay are still as fuzzy as the edges of the islands of associated pieces. Doing a jigsaw means finding, first the obvious pieces, and then looking for connecting pieces. It is completely non-linear and a 3D printer would not be able to do this; one day they will be able to go from one island, or high-point, to another in a non-linear way, let's imagine multiple islands, but right now they have to follow rules that only allow linear movement. Laser cutters with CAD can do this and so can embroidery machines.
Conclusion
I probably use my jigsaw example in a first draft of an essay, but I don't have a picture to look at to tell me where to put the pieces. I suppose, I know where the edges are because there are parameters set by the question. To be honest, it has only just occurred to me to try different techniques. I am thinking that I might try to write freely all I know, sieving as I go, like weaving basic patterns that have areas of colour. This would not be like a jigsaw though, because it is entirely linear. Then, from that, I can see the 'picture', and I know the constraints so I can do a complete rewrite like doing a jigsaw, and then use my idea of 3D printing by going over the essay in a linear fashion, building on the islands of interest and making links and bridges as I go. Then, for the final draft, remove the supports in the edit (spelling and grammar and any superfluous linking sentences)