A quote from the last section of Grant Faulkner’s The Art of Brevity: Crafting the Very Short Story (168-169):

On Revision (and Knitting)

When knitting, you might get pretty far along with your sock before you realized you effed up and dropped a stitch. If you want your sock to look good, you are going to rip out the stitches and lose the hours you spent knitting perfectly well after you made that mistake in order to correct your error and ultimately make the sock you were born to knit. For me, writing is the same. If I take a wrong turn, I need to go back to that juncture to fix the story. Otherwise, I will have a sock, I mean, story, that has not lived up to its potential. A stupid, useless sock-story.

— Lynn Mundell

I’m struck by the parallel to a recent experience of my own: I found a skein of cotton yarn, whose label indicated it was suitable for size 1-3 mm needles, and I knitted a sock to the heel gusset three times. Each time, I dropped a stitch or lost count of the decreases then couldn’t retrieve the stitches when I undid my work. After I ripped out the sock for a third time, I decided I either needed to change the needle size or yarn weight. I found a skein of Noro sock wool–not as soft as cotton–but the weight fit the needles. The stitches were not too tight, not too loose. The gauge was just right.

Like Mundell, I couldn’t leave the mistake and carry on. Unlike Mundell, I couldn’t return to the juncture and fix it. The mistake was in the materials: the yarn, the needles, the gauge, the pattern. Something was amiss. Everything has to work together in order for the sock to live up to its potential. Rather than revising “a rip in the fabric” (yet again), I need to rip out the entire sock-story and start over. Rather than a 387-word micro essay, perhaps I need to write a 100-word story about the demise of a favorite flannel robe. Distill the sock-story to its essence.