Principles

There are five sentences I would defend in argument. They are the bones of everything that follows. I have tried, over many years, to find shorter ones — but each one has earned its length.

Make it small enough to start

The largest sin in this craft is grandeur. Not because grandeur is bad, but because it is paralysing. A project that is too big to start cannot be finished, however hard one labours; the work happens in the head, not on the page, and at the head’s leisure. Make it small enough to start. The first version should be embarrassing. The embarrassment will pass; the project will not.

Show it before you want to

Almost everyone shows their work too late. By the time it feels ready, you have spent too long making it confirm your own assumptions. Hand it over while you can still hear someone else clearly. The right time to show a draft is the moment you would rather not.

Subtract before you add

Every iteration brings the temptation to add. The discipline is to remove first. If a thing has any complexity, it has at least one ornament that does not earn its place; find that ornament before you bring in the next one. The best work is small not because the maker had nothing more to say but because they cut what wasn’t load-bearing.

Trust the apparatus

A craft is partly a set of objects: tools, references, a shelf of books you reach for. The apparatus exists so the maker doesn’t have to decide everything from scratch every day. Trust it. Don’t reinvent. The apparatus is a promise from the past version of yourself to the present one — that you’ve already worked through this.

Leave more than you took

This last one isn’t tactical. It is a sentiment, and an instruction: when you finish a project, the field you found should be richer than when you arrived. A note in a margin, a tool sharpened, a young person taught. The work is yours; the craft is borrowed.