Thursday, May 15, 2008

This week's Booking Through Thursday meme is a funny one:
Scenario: You’ve just bought some complicated gadget home . . . do you read the accompanying documentation? Or not?

Do you ever read manuals?

How-to books?

Self-help guides?

Anything at all?


In terms of complicated gadgets, like I said last week, I'm a button pusher. I like to learn by doing (and by my mistakes). Once I've hit a roadblock, I'll try to troubleshoot using the manual (or preferably online searchable help).

I don't read how-to books, or self-help guides. I do read books about creativity and spirituality, but those are generally theoretical or narrative, and not "Take step 1, and now step 2, etc..." Again, I like to jump in and try.

It's how I wrote my first long piece of fiction, a novella, a few years ago. I came late to fiction - I was 31 - and had no idea what I was doing, so I just sat down and winged it. Same with my first novel. And it seems that approach worked out fine.

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous6:50 AM

    No manuals for me. I'm like you, I always try it first and then consult the manual. This usually works. The one time it didn't was in constructing my daughter's crib.

    Self-help - No. Besides, I don't know how reading someone's opinion on how to help myself is self-help :)

    How-to? Maybe for handyman, around the house stuff.

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  2. Loved your answers. I use a lot of self help workbooks which are closer to guides than narratives, though I do enjoy both kinds. It is great that the jump in and try has worked so well for your writing. I jump in a lot but really need to work to keep at it!

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  3. Now when John Wayne rode in to town to tackle the cattle barons in their fancy Eastern Style ranches you never see anyone struggling with a flat pack manual. Yet mail order catalogues took off in the 19th century so did the fancy furniture arrive all made up? We need an answer!!

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