Archives for October 2014

Living with Perfectionism: a survivor’s guide

October 31, 2014 By Guy Windsor Leave a Comment

I have just this very day completed the first draft of my next longsword book; snappily titled Mastering the Art of Arms vol 3: Longsword Advanced Training.

Can you think of a better title?

To celebrate, here is one small section of the book, that actually started out in life as a draft blog post, as a follow up to this one.

Living with perfectionism

One of the many reasons that teaching swordsmanship is the right career choice for me is that it is the one area of my life in which “good enough” is not even close to acceptable. “Excellent” is “ok for now I suppose”. This means that I am emotionally incapable of being satisfied with whatever level of technical and tactical skill I may attain. Back when I was a cabinet-maker (which I did professionally for five years), if it was good enough, I was happy with it. So I was perpetually frustrated, as I couldn’t apply the necessary uncompromising will to excellence that marks a true craftsman. In swordsmanship though, I simply cannot, will not, accept the current standard as “good enough”. And I am therefore much more satisfied. This will seem a contradiction, but it isn’t: I am satisfied with progress made, not level attained.

And it is that uncompromising, perpetual dissatisfaction with my current level that enables me to maintain the progress that I find so satisfying.

Perfection is unattainable in this lifetime. I have friends who make furniture, like this by Patrick Baxter (who I used to work for)

or swords, or other beautiful things, such as this from JT Pälikkö

Their craftsmanship astonishes me. I will look at what they have made and gasp in awe and wonder at its shimmering perfection. They will then say something like “well, it was a bitch to do. That corner isn’t quite right. And the proportions there are a bit off. It’s crap, really. I’m not sure I should let it out of the workshop.” But, and here’s the irony: they love their job. It consumes and enlarges them.

I have seen many students suffer in training from their desire to do everything perfectly. The let the fact that they cannot do it perfectly rob them of the pleasure from doing it more perfectly today than they could yesterday. My point here is that the suffering is unnecessary. Yes, your current level today is not as good as it might be tomorrow- but if this trend continues, it will be better tomorrow, so be happy!

So how to make the switch between focussing on the current level to focussing on progress made? There is no one simple answer to this (is there ever?), but the following ideas have proved helpful to me:

1) Accept your fallible human nature. You will make mistakes, but ideally the mistakes you make today are smaller, less critical, and just plain better than the mistakes you made yesterday. You have eternity to be perfect once you’re dead.

2) Take video of yourself in training doing a basic exercise, and don’t look at it for a year. Then take more video of the same sort of training, and compare the two clips. The improvement should be remarkable. If it isn’t, your training methodology needs fixing.

3) Understand that as you improve, your ability to spot mistakes improves, and so while you might have noticed huge mistakes in the beginning, thanks to your developing magnifying glass vision, the much smaller mistakes you make now are blown up and appear worse than they really are.

4) Be perfect like the sky. Just what is it about perfection that is so damn attractive? It seems to generally be taken to mean “so good that further progress is impossible”. So, should you attain that state, the only thing to do is stop training because you’re done. But swords are cool, so why would you want to stop training? Really, you can be perfect now: the sky is always perfect, but the sky is always changing. So be perfect like the sky, not perfect like God.

Let me take my mandritto fendente as an example. By the standards of our community at present, it is pretty good, as one would require from a professional. And compared to the average beginner, it is excellent. And yet to me, it is profoundly flawed. Let’s have a look at why. Every blow has four phases: chamber, release, contact, and withdrawal. (As a historical aside: George Silver identifies three such phases: bent= chambered; spent=contact; lying spent=withdrawal.)

When chambered, the blow is ready to go: the sword is withdrawn in some measure from the intended finishing point of the movement, such as lying in posta di donna. The question is, is that chamber perfect? In other words, is every molecule in my body in the perfect place such that releasing the blow requires no adjustment of any kind? No. But eliminating such adjustments eliminates telegraphing the blow to the opponent. This particular blow can start from many different positions: fenestra, tutta porta di ferro, coda longa to name a few. It can also start as a continuation forom another movement: after parrying from zenghiaro, for example, or after a feint in a different line. How smoothly does it flow from that movement? Not very. So, my chambering needs work. The stability drill might help.

Releasing the blow is pretty easy if the sword is already in motion, but quite hard if it is still. I have to overcome the inertia of the sword, and make sure that the threat and opportunities presented to my opponent truly are exactly as I think they are. If I think I have presented no opportunity to counterattack, and I’m right, either the blow lands, or the blow is parried, or if the opponent does counterattack, his action will fail and I will strike. If I am wrong, the counterattack might kill me. Also, the moment of release is the most difficult part of the blow to get right, as any imperfection in the chamber will lead my body to do a semi-conscious mini-chambering action, which will tell my opponent that I’m on my way. If I can control this, I can feed him that tell and profit from his reaction to it. Or hide it, and strike without telegraphing. I can also adjust the rate of acceleration: from “go like hell” all out maximum speed (get there before the parry arrives), or start slow and finish fast (trick him into a too-slow parry), or start fast and slow down a little then speed up again (watch that fast parry go by then hit him), all within the time taken to get from donna to longa. Is my release perfect? Not even close. Better get in front of a mirror or video camera and watch it.

On contact, the blow should be perfectly supported. This means that all the energy in the blow goes into the target, and the equal and opposite reaction that Newton demands is routed perfectly through my sword, through my grip, down my body and into the ground. Or rather, if I choose it to be so, it is.When hitting students or colleagues in free fencing, it is better to break that connection to minimise damage. But breaking that connection mist be done right, or the force of the blow may be absorbed in my wrist, neck, shoulder, hip or knee (to name the usual problem spots) and cause damage over time. If the blow is supposed to be unsupported (such as in a zwerchau), then controlling the impact is even more challenging as there is no structure behind the edge to manipulate the impact with. Good thing we are looking at a nice simple supported mandritto fendente then. Is my contact perfect? Um, no. Striking the tyre, stroking the pell, static pressure grounding exercises, and free fencing all may help.

After contact, I must withdraw safely: there is no sense just leaving the sword stuck in the target. So, is this blow intended to strike through (to zenghiaro for example) or to stay in posta longa? If through, then depending on what I am hitting, it might be best to support the blow all the way through (when cutting targets like tatami) or break on contact (when hitting friends). If cutting through, does that action perfectly chamber the next blow? Or perfectly create the guard I wish to finish in? Cutting through also requires the tactical circumstances in which to withdraw. It might be safer to change the blow and leave the sword in the centre, especially if the blow failed for some reason (like not being perfect). Can I always, and reliably, at full speed adjust my withdrawal accordingly? No. Better work on that then. Tyre, pell, free fencing, drills with degrees of freedom, form, may all help.

So, we have now established the profound imperfections of my mandritto fendente. But I can fence with the best in my community and hit them with it. So it’s not useless. It also rarely fails to slice through tatami. So it’s not useless. It also hits the tyre pretty hard. So it’s not useless. I am much better at manipulating my opponent’s expectations of the blow now than I was five years ago. So that’s getting better. I don’t think power has improved much in that time, so perhaps I should work more on that. My chambering has improved noticeably since regularly incorporating the stability drill into my training, so that’s a double win: a useful drill developed and an improved blow.

OK, that’s the mechanics (structure and flow) of the blow addressed. What about tactics (time and measure)? When is this the right blow to use? It is rarely wrong to strike a good mandritto fendente: I picked a good general purpose blow for that very reason. But can I use this as a parry? A feint? A counterattack? In what measures is it best? If you have ever seen someone trying to land a mandritto fendente when they have the opponent’s arms enveloped in their own left arm, it’s a pitiful sight. Pommel strike, hilt strike, or pull the sword back and thrust would all work better. Though it is clearly implied in the text and picture of the ninth play of the zogho stretto; so wait, perhaps there is work to be done here…pair drills, the plays from the treatise in which it appears, in their canonical forms and in variations, and free fencing, may all help.

Perfectionism, the emotional incapability of accepting less than perfection, is the engine that drives excellence in all its forms. It also cripples many swordsmanship (and other) careers before they even start. It is a powerful and overwhelming force, so treat with it carefully and harness it to your goals.

Get a Second Opinion!

October 24, 2014 By Guy Windsor Leave a Comment

Warning: major sword geekery alert. What follows might interest about 1% of my readership, and about 0.000001% of the world’s population (that’s 60 people). But it’s exactly this kind of nit-picking pedantry that in the end makes this the right job for me; because this is the only area in the world where I care this much about such apparently trivial or minor details. And what to you may seem a minor change is, to me, a huge and fundamental shift in my thinking.

What am I babbling about? The position of my tailbone when holding a rapier.

Those of you that have trained with me know that I am anal about my tailbone. Which makes sense, when you think about it. But what I mean is that the tailbone is the keystone of the arch of which your hands form one end, and your feet the other. It is where things often go wrong when grounding. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, this video may help.

About four years ago, my friend and colleague Puck Curtis and I were discussing Spanish and Italian rapier systems, when he used a term I immediately adopted and put in capital letters: Primary Axis of Defence. This is just the default way any system of swordsmanship tends to organise its parries. In Angelo’s smallsword system (for which see his School of Fencing, 1787), it is abundantly clear that the Primary Axis of Defence is left-right, the shift between tierce and carte, or carte over the arm and carte.

In Fiore’s Art of Arms, it is very clearly the fendente-sottano line; attacks are almost always beaten up or down. (I won’t justify this here, but suffice to say that if you disagree with that statement, you and I are so far apart in our interpretations that discussing them is probably a waste of time.) Puck said back then that the Spanish rapier sources he studies suggest something similar; the Primary Axis of Defence is up-down, along about the same diagonal lines as Fiore is using.

In 2005 I’d have said the same about Capoferro’s rapier system. But somewhere along the line since then, I slipped away into thinking of Capoferro’s Primary Axis of Defence as being like Angelo’s; left-right, between seconda and quarta. I don’t know how that happened, because in the text it’s pretty clear that this is not really the case. There is abundant evidence to suggest otherwise, not least the final chapter (A secure way to defend yourself against all sorts of blows). But this lead me into conceiving of the stringering as primarily left-right, not up-down.

One of the secrets of my success, if not the secret, is that I hire in lots of external instructors, whom I may agree with or not, but who always show me other ways of thinking about the things that I am doing. In this year alone, we have had Jörg Bellinghausen teaching the messer; Devon Boorman teaching rapier; Roberto Laura teaching Italian knife; and we have Jessica Finley coming here in a couple of weeks to teach German medieval wrestling.

I cannot overstate how important this is; bringing in new ideas, new ways of doing things, and insights into other systems, are utterly critical to the development of my understanding of my Art.

And Devon’s rapier seminar is an excellent case in point. While we will probably always disagree about exactly how the turn of the back foot specified on plate 5 should be done (he rolls, I pivot on the ball),

his seminar emphasised a vertical Primary Axis of Defence (though I don't recall him using that term), so the stringering is about getting on top of your opponent’s sword, not keeping it off to one side. He also reminded us of the body-lean that I bang on about in The Duellist’s Companion but had let slide gently out of practice in the intervening 8 years. We are doing it a lot more now!

These are related, in that the body lean, and the vertically oriented Primary Axis of Defence lead us to a different orientation of the tailbone. Simply put, against vertical resistance (such as gravity acting on a barbell), your tailbone should be in neutral. Against horizontal resistance, such as someone pushing on your chest from in front, your tailbone should be tucked. (Go watch the video again if this is not clear.) Devon’s mechanics, and this is so important, allow us to retain a neutral tailbone position throughout. Which is better, easier, less fatiguing, and looks more like the pictures. Damn. That was money well spent!

This has had a knock-on effect; I am now looking at Fiore’s posta longa of the abrazare in a new light; he seems turned, and to lean, and in other words able to absorb incoming pressure with a neutral spine. Damn again.

By finding ways to treat horizontal pressure as coming in from the side, not the front, you can get away with an awful lot of neutral spine positions, that otherwise you’d need to tuck for.

In case it’s not clear; when it comes to the study of my Art, I live for this shit. Apparently tiny tweaks that have major, major ramifications. So major that it’s taken me four months to absorb and digest them. So here you are. The take-home lessons are:

1) get as many second opinions as you can afford. I hire on average 4 external instructors per year, and have done since I opened the school.

2) always go back to the book. Check everything, because drift is inevitable.

3) The fundamentals (mechanics, timing, measure) do not change; they are like the laws of physics. But how they are expressed by any art may change hugely (planes and submarines are both governed by the same laws, but behave very differently).

Writing Swordfights, and a great offer.

October 22, 2014 By Guy Windsor 1 Comment

My friends at Pulp Literature are running another crowdfunding campaign to raise funds for their second year; I have greatly enjoyed the four volumes of short stories, novellas, poetry and artwork that constituted year one. One of their founders, Jennifer Landels, runs the mounted combat program at Academie Duello, and writes and draws swordfighting scenes (yes, chaps, huge chunks of Pulp Literature have no swords in them at all. And are STILL worth reading. Amazing.) So I sent Jen the current draft of my next book, Swordfighting, because it has advice for writers on creating good swordfights. She has been following my advice (not that she necessarily needed it!), and allowed me to share some of the results with you.

Here is a previously unpublished exclusive excerpt from Allaigna’s Song, which has been serialised in Pulp Literature issues 1-4, and will continue in 5-8; this will be part of issue 6 or 7.

We were almost at the end of the alley, when something else that glittered caught my eye. I pulled Chal by the sleeve into a swordsmith’s shop. Hundreds of swords and dirks hung from their hilts on the walls, and more sat scabbarded in bins behind the counter. I paused for a moment, stunned by the bristling array of steel: great swords and long swords by the dozen, short broad blades and long slim duelling swords, hunting daggers, ceremonial daggers, throwing knives and poignards sharp as hat pins. It seemed there was more weaponry in this tiny shop than the whole of the Bastion’s armoury.

Enraptured, I wandered slowly around the store under the silent, watchful gaze of the shopkeeper. When the sense of impatience from both her and Chal became oppressive, I stopped at the furthest case. Catching my breath, I pointed at a slim short sword. Page’s training aside, I still found it terrifying to talk to strangers, so I allowed myself no time to think.

“Can I see that one … please?”

The storekeep looked at me appraisingly. “That one? You’ve good taste, young lady,” she replied, but made no move to open the cabinet. “Do you know what it is?”

Chal save me from answering. She was as aghast as I had been in the apothecary.

“A sword? What do you need with a sword? Don’t you get enough of that with arms practice? And what’s wrong with the ones they give us, anyway?”

“They’re heavy, clumsy, and too big for me,” I snapped back at her.

The shopkeeper still stood with her arms crossed.

“That’s good training, that is,” she finally said. “Learn with a heavy practice sword and you’re twice as fast and strong when you get a good one in your hands. Like that one there. Ilvani craftsmanship. No child’s toy.”

My ears burned.

“I’m not a child! I’m –” I stopped. “I can afford it,” I challenged, not knowing if I really could.

“Perhaps. But can you use it?”

I nodded sharply.

“Very well, then. Show me.” She unlocked the case and brought out the sword. It was a beautiful thing. The handle was wrapped in green and gold threads, ending at a carved brass pommel. The swept knuckle guard was minimal and elegant, and the blade itself, just as long as my arm, was no more than a slim two finger-widths at the hilt. The unsharp portion was etched with delicate tracery my eyes couldn’t quite follow, of flowers and beasts intertwined in a continuous river.

It felt almost weightless compared to the clunky swords we drilled with, and it sliced the air with an easy thrum when I gave a few tentative cuts.

The shopkeep was out from behind the counter now, and for the first time I noticed her size and the muscles of her arm. No doubt she could use any blade here, but in her hand was a short sword, of a length with the one I held, though not so beautiful. She handed a blunting scabbard to me.

“Let’s see you use it, then,” she said, tying a matching scabbard on her own blade.

Chal gasped. I stepped back and looked the shopkeeper in the face to see if she was joking. She stood in a casual guard position, sword point level with my head.

“Here?” My voice came out in timid squeak as I glanced at the narrow space hemmed in by cabinets.

She nodded, the barest smile lifting the corners of her mouth. “Don’t break any glass or you’ll be paying for that.”

“No … thank you. I don’t think so.” I turned the sword over to my left hand and proffered it, hilt first.

She gave the blade a smack with her own, sending it spinning from my hand. Without being aware I was doing it, I caught the hilt in my right once more.

“No, I think so,” she said, her smile stretching.

That smile was the goad. With trembling fingers, I tied the blunting on, not daring to look at her face till it was done. Stepping backward I lifted my sword into a guard that matched hers, though my point dipped and wavered while hers hovered steady before my eyes.

She began slowly, circling my point with hers to cover my sword. I stepped back, nerves making me disengage her blade with a jerk too fast to be polite. Still smooth and smiling she followed my turn and ended up on top again. We spent a few moments like that, me flicking my blade back and forth, down and around, trying to gain advantage; and she never losing her unruffled calm or her superior position.

Frustrated I swung the blade around in an arc, smashing against her sword, which came up to meet mine invisibly fast. The impact shuddered down my arm and threw my sword away. Hers hardly moved.

She stepped forward, laughing, and tapped my exposed side with the flat of her blade.

“Never throw your weight against someone who weighs four times as much, little bird.”

The blow stung, but not as much as the words. Only Rhiadne was allowed to call me that. I ducked low and cut at her feet and legs. She stepped back almost casually and caught my sword again with hers. I flicked my hand over, hoping to catch hers in an upswing, but she countered easily. Neither Baredh nor the weapons master at the Bastion had ever moved so fast. I knew she was toying with me and it was infuriating.

I ducked again and lunged, this time driving my sword upward under hers, careless of the fact she could bring her blade down fatally on my unguarded head if she chose. With a turn that happened so fast I didn’t see it, she locked my hilt and twisted the sword from my hand.

“Tt,” She shook her head, holding my blade in her left hand. “It’s not done, aiming for the vitals in a friendly match. Especially when you want something from me. Or were you planning to walk past my bleeding corpse with a new sword?”

Fury and humiliation welled in my eyes. I blinked them back down, but said nothing, having no faith in my voice.

She put both blades down on the counter behind her and folded her arms across her broad chest. Head cocked to one side she peered at me once more with skin-flaying eyes.

“The sword is yours if you can afford it.”

I blinked again. “How much?”

“A hundred and forty.”

I sagged. It was at least a hundred more than I had. The tears fought their way back up. I had come into the shop on a whim that had been transformed to an obsession. The newfound object of my desire pierced my heart and stayed there, burning. I thought bitterly of the jewelled gold cups and flagons I filled and refilled every day. A single one would pay for this treasure. What good was having a prince for a grandfather when I lived on a page’s allowance?

I shook my head, and swallowed the fire. “It’s too much.”

Her eyes, for once, looked sympathetic. “I have others – less costly.”

She offered me the one she’d wielded.

I eyed it without moving. It was a plain, sturdy sword, almost identical to the ones we polished every day. I shrugged and crossed my arms protectively against despair.

Chal, who’d stayed pressed in the corner till now, came forward.

“I could lend you some, Allaigna. I’ve got twenty or so left.”

I shook my head. Not enough. I looked up, still hugging myself.

“Could I,” I hesitated, desperately unbold, but desperate enough. “Could I pay you some now and some later?”

“Why certainly little bird. But I’ll keep it here till you’ve paid in full. Twenty falcons a week for twelve weeks.”

I did the sums in my head and opened my mouth to protest.

“And I’ll throw in a lesson each time you come.”

I was torn between outrage and hope, but my lust won out. I fished twenty falcons worth of mixed coin from my purse and spilled it on the counter, though my hand hovered over the pile.

“How do I know you won’t just keep my money and sell the sword to someone else?”

“Well, you don’t know, do you? That’s the nature of trade. We can shake on it though.”

She put a fist to her heart, spat in her hand, and held it out. I did the same, clasping her large hand with my tiny one. She scraped the coins off the counter and passed them back to me.

“You can start paying next week. This lesson was free.”

I nodded, and backed toward the door.

“And what about you, young lady, she called to Chal. A dirk, perhaps? A fine stiletto?”

“Do you fight with all your customers?” Chal asked warily.

The shopkeeper smiled. “That depends on what they want.”

“No thank you, then,” said Chal as we made a hasty exit into the chilly winter afternoon.

Now, as if that wasn’t enough, she has also shared some of the early sketches for a mounted combat scene in one of the stories; oh you lucky people!

So, if you like this stuff, as you jolly well should, then hi thee to the Starter of Kick, and part with some of your hard-earned. Because if you don't, they might not make their target, and then I won't get my next four issues, and that will make me grumpy and sad. And you wouldn't want that, now, would you?

Which book shall I write for you next?

October 21, 2014 By Guy Windsor Leave a Comment

My next book, Swordfighting, is, from a creative perspective, done. It is still being edited, tweaked into better forms, and has yet to be published, but the creative work, by which I mean “writing new material”, is over. I have a bunch of started book projects on my computer, and I am wondering which of them most takes your fancy; which one would you most like to see finished first. I posted a poll yesterday, and the top three contenders are:

1) Mastering the Art of Arms vol 3: Longsword Advanced Training. The sequel to my latest longsword book, which would cover advanced training, techniques, and concepts. (40% of the votes)

2) A new rapier book, to replace The Duellist's Companion. This will take into account about 9 years of teaching rapier regularly, and so be much easier to follow and use. (22% of the votes)

3) How to Train which has sections on strength training, nutrition, range of motion, meditation, and breathing. In other words how to craft your body to be able to do what you want it to do. The emphasis will be on being able to swing swords, but the principles are sufficiently general that it can apply to any area of life. (31% of the votes)

Or is there something else? I'm open to suggestions, which so far have included: a beginner's Bolognese book, Sword & Buckler, combined martial arts and swordsmanship (whatever that is!), and my interpretation of all of Fiore's plays on foot, among others.

So, if you have an opinion, please let me know it by answering my poll. I added 3000 words to my draft of Advanced Longsword today, inspired by yesterday's responses…

Begin Again: on being a beginner

October 17, 2014 By Guy Windsor 3 Comments

As I slowly progress towards mastery in my chosen Art, I get further and further ahead of my beginners. This could lead to me getting out of touch with their needs. I also get accustomed to a certain routine, a set way of doing things. Both of these things are death to a good teacher. So I have made it a deliberate habit to be a beginner at something, all the time. From early 2001 to the end of 2003, I was a private student of an instructor in a very traditional kung-fu style; the same chap that fixed my wrists. The sort of school where to learn the inner secrets of the Art you have to be legally adopted by the grandmaster. Old School indeed. So much so that I will not identify the school here, because its internal politics are so damn Confucian that it may cause all sorts of trouble if I do. The training was not just profoundly uncomfortable, it was also hellishly painful, as this school included serious hardening training in its core curriculum. I would not normally touch hardening with a stick, as it is often a short-term unhealthy strategy, but in this case it went hand-in-hand with serious maintenance; specifically massage, breathing, and herbal medicine. So I ended up much healthier than I started, but also, and this is the point: from 7am to 9am three mornings a week, I was an absolute beginner. Which meant that when I was standing up in front of my class that evening, I had some sympathy for, and insight into, what my students were experiencing.

As I started to get emotionally comfortable with the kung fu, and so it lost some of its beginneriness (if you’ll allow me to coin a term), I took up something I’d wanted to learn since I was a little kid: bullwhip cracking. I loved loved loved Indiana Jones, and could think of no more apposite multi-purpose tool than a bullwhip. You can fend off baddies and swing across ravines with these things. Really, why doesn’t everyone carry one?

I met a professional performer at Hämeenlinna medieval market in 2002, Ari Lauanne, who taught me some basics; in half an hour I striped myself from knee to shoulder, and found out why they are not so commonly carried. They are damn hard to use! So I got a beauty made by Alex Cobra of Cobra Whips, just a six-footer to start with, and practised most nights before class. I got quite good, compared to a beginner (though I’m not in the same class as Alex, or Ari), and so while I keep up my skills every now and then, I needed to find something else. The essence of beginneriness is having no frames of reference with which to make difficulties approachable. The same is basically true for everything else; once people ask me what I’m doing and I can explain it properly, I’m no longer really in the true beginner state.

Around this time I started to seriously study Finnish. Now there is a language where you can stay a beginner for a very long time. I put in two years of real effort, and got to a very basic level of competence. Then my first daughter was born, and I had to make a decision; spend my now much more restricted time putting in another thousand hours or so getting to fluency; or spend that time writing a couple of books. I chose books, and while there are negative consequences to not being comfortable in Finnish, there are about five million people who can speak Finnish, but perhaps only fifty who can write books like mine on European swordsmanship. The world needs my books more than it needs me to speak Finnish. Another side-benefit of course is that I can step outside my comfort zone (I literally break into a cold sweat) by simply engaging a neighbour in basic conversation.

Being a parent is also a state of being a constant beginner. Just as you get competent at taking care of a baby, you’re suddenly running around after a toddler. They develop faster than you do. Excellent, long-term beginneriness. But like everything you do day-in, day-out, it gets easier.

In 2012 I was given a flying lesson in a light aircraft, by a friend of mine. Oh. My. God. It was terrifying, exhilarating, very, very challenging (like learning to drive a car in three dimensions instead of two, then multiplied by about a million), and I was literally giddy with it for days afterwards. But it will cost about 6,000 euros to get my license, so that will have to wait until one of my books goes all 50 Shades on me and I am rolling in cash. (No, I will NOT be adding tepid BDSM scenes to my next book. Nor torrid ones neither.) So in 2013 I took up the yo-yo. Yes, really. Very cheap, and really, really hard. There are some excellent tutorial videos online (go to André Boulay’s site yoyoexpert.com; there he has arranged a complete curriculum from beginner to master level, and explains every trick in detail. Check it out online to get some idea of what expertise in that field actually looks like). So for a thousandth of the cost of learning to fly, I was constantly working at, and failing at, something. And it was really fun.

This is about as far as I got:

This is what good looks like:

Then Audatia came along, and what a learning curve that was. I knew nothing about game design, or producing card games, and not much about any of the nitty gritty of getting a project like that done, with several different experts all working on it at the same time. But after the first decks are out and the rest are on their way, while it remains challenging, I’m not a proper beginner any more.

Of course, from the inside, I am a beginner whenever I pick up a sword. My errors of form and technique are as obvious to me as those of the clumsiest beginner. But I have a large store of experience to draw from when figuring out how to improve. The art is deeply familiar to me. Huge chunks of the relevant sources are just there in my head to read at leisure. So even though my skills are sadly lacking, from my perspective, that doesn’t give me a true insight into the beginner because the problems are well known to me, not confusingly new. I know exactly how to fix them, I just have to get on and do it.

Right now I am looking for the next activity to be a beginner in. It needs to be a) ethical b) affordable c) have a physical component other than using a computer d) clearly defined basics (success/failure states. Is the yoyo tangled? fail. Did the whip crack? success. Is the plane still in one piece? success. Is the whip wrapped round my own face? fail. And so on) and e) not require formal classes unless they happen in the mornings. I welcome your suggestions!

The Writing Set-up of Doom!

October 6, 2014 By Guy Windsor 1 Comment

One of my favourite internet distractions is seeing how other writers (proper writers. Professional writers. Oh wait, that's me too!) set up their work space. The fallacy, of course, is the underlying idea that if I just use the same tools, I’ll get the same results. This is not so. It is well to remember that for most of recorded history, writers used feathers and bits of skin. So George R.R. Martin’s famous use of WordStar 4.0, or Iain Broome's minimal approach, or whatever, are clearly helpful but not necessary for good writing. Nice to have, sure, but not having the latest kit (or the oldest, depending on your preferences) is no excuse. There are lots of writers who seem to manage with just a laptop in a coffee shop, but I just don't find that conducive to good work myself. I like my books around me, and a very quiet environment. So what do I use?
My writing set-up is fantastic. Really, I’ve put a lot of time and effort into it, much of which should probably have gone on actually writing. The set-up is subordinate to the process, of course, so here’s the process first:
I either write directly in Scrivener (recommended to me by Neal Stephenson, whose name be praised ‘cos this program works!), or more commonly, I write up notes (after class, for instance) in a hard-back notebook, with a proper ink pen, and usually on a writing slope that I cobbled together when editing Veni Vadi Vici. Then I take a photo of the notes with my smartphone (Samsung Galaxy s2, bought in September 2012, a few months after the s3 came out, so really cheap for what it can do), which uploads the pics directly to Dropbox (which is a totally life-saving service. Automatic backing up and syncing across devices; literally everything I'm working on, and all my most commonly-used reference sources are stored there). So when I get home to my study (oh bliss, I have an actual study. A room for reading and writing only. Luxury times ten) my notes are there on the computer (a mid-2010 21.5” iMac). I can then write stuff up, with Scrivener on the right, and the notes on the left of the screen.
This is all made MUCH easier by being able to touch-type, which I learned thanks to a gentle teasing from M. Harold Page. This was so incredibly frustrating that I had to cobble together a standing desk (another of Neal's tips) so I could squirm from foot to foot while forcing my rebellious fingers to find the right keys. I literally disassembled and nailed together an IKEA bookshelf, and stood it on a couple of filing cabinets: yes, I really should make a prettier one; but dammit, I have books to write! During this process of learning to type, before I had much time invested in Qwerty, I switched to the Dvorak keyboard layout, and here’s why:

See the pattern of wear? Almost all on the home row, with some on the top row, and a little on the bottom? Proof if ever you needed it that Dvorak is way more efficient. (I was passing the study door one evening and noticed the light hit the keyboard, pulled out the phone at snapped a shot. Damn, having a decent camera in my pocket changes things.) I actually hacked up a Dvorak layout keyboard from a second Apple keyboard, because every now and then I need to see the keys, still. Especially for passwords and such. I hanker after but cannot yet justify one of these ergonomic beauties (in the Qwerty/Dvorak configuration, of course!).
I made the normal desk back in 2008, as a way of delaying writing The Medieval Longsword; these days the iMac sits on it, for times when I don’t feel like standing, or need the bigger screen. My wife also uses the iMac, and doesn’t care to work standing up, so there it is.

Now that my books are actually bringing in real income, I spent some of it on a Macbook Air, 13 inches of rocket ship. It’s fab. I can put it anywhere, such as here on the standing desk,

and I usually use a separate keyboard, not least for ergonomic reasons. I can support the laptop at a convenient height (this desk was made for the iMac, hence the dictionary under the laptop to bring the screen up), leaving my hands where they should be. I also stand on a pilates mat (one of my wife's), which helps a lot with lower back pain, and leg fatigue. The mat brought me up enough that I took the leftover solander box from my Extraordinary Edition of I.33 and used it to bring up the keyboard to exactly the right height. (If you're into ergonomics, you might enjoy this book on the perils of sitting: Kelly Starrett's Deskbound.)

You may note that R2D2 and Yoda are both there, one for scolding, the other for sage advice, whenever I slack off or get stuck.

Note also the humidifier (the upside-down bottle on the left); it makes a big difference to long-term comfort when working, because Finnish houses are properly insulated and heated, and thus dry out during the winter. The baseball on a stick is a Blue Snowball mike for doing voiceovers on videos.
I was given a Roost stand for my birthday last year, by my friend Tina, which allows me to do this funky trick:

This is great for writing when on the move, or in the kitchen. The kitchen has a great view, and the best light, and sometimes a change of environment can unstick the stuck. The ergonomic benefits are huge, and really capitalise on my hard-won ability to not look at my hands when I type.
I also use my writing slave (no, not a typist, I wish!); this is a specialised bookshelf, with a slope for the current tome, and canted shelves so you can read the spines from next to it (so you don’t have to move out of position to find the right book).
The iPad 2 (from 2011) was a birthday present from my parents, and is really, really useful. It acts as a second screen when writing, especially for a primary source that I’m referring to, but most importantly, during the dreaded editing process, I export a pdf of the current draft from Scrivener, and edit it on the iPad making notes and corrections in PDF Expert using a stylus, which I can then apply to the draft. It is an efficient way to minimise the number of printed drafts I need to do. If I’m going to write much on it, I use the Origami keyboard case and stand.

I have the iPad safely ensconced in a bulky military-grade case, from Griffin; I drop stuff way too much to risk shattering that delicate screen. When travelling, I will take the Air if I intend to do real work, or just the iPad for emails and so on. On the rare occasions I do write properly on it, I use Simplenote for syncing with Scrivener (there is no Scrivener app for the iPad; not yet at least), but more usually PlainText for writing and automatically syncing with Dropbox. We have come a long way from feathers and bits of skin; but at times when I feel like going old-school, I have a proper dip pen and an antique writing slope (bought for 25 quid on Ebay!), and a pen holder and nibs, which I use with Winsor brand (naturally!) Indian ink. And of course, I would dearly love to write with a quill on parchment. It's just better. One day…

Regarding layout; for writing that I am giving away free, I do it myself in Pages. For writing that I am selling, I pay my excellent designer, Bek Pickard of Zebedee Design. I trust the difference is obvious!

So, add this all together, and I think you’ll agree it’s a pretty sweet set-up, involving no less than three custom-made bits of furniture, two computers, two separate keyboards, and a tablet. The critical components are: for workflow: Pen and ink, Scrivener, Dropbox, PDF Expert, and my camera phone; for ergonomics: my standing desk, and the overall adjustability that comes from having movable screens and a separate keyboard.

Overall, I have a name for it: NO F*CKING EXCUSES.

So, what's your ideal set-up, and why?

Archives for October 2014

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