Self-trickery and Rough Drafts
Woodcarving, writing
I recently stopped by Ido Yoshimoto’s studio in West Marin. Ido carves crisp shapes into organic—often large—hunks of wood. They invoke feelings of near-impossibility. My usual thought when I look at Ido’s stuff is How did you do that? So when I swung through it was mostly to chat about process and siphon some knowledge.1
Talking track saws and router jigs and chainsaws satisfied some curiosities but there were a couple of broader bits that stuck with me.
Ido was saying that staring at a chunk of wood and trying to create a plan only goes so far. For him, the best move is often to just start cutting.
That was surprising. And (sort of) demystified a final product that I assumed could only be achieved through careful step-by-step planning. But it also aligning with a Just start mantra I’m ever-pushing. And is reminiscent of other high-output creators and processes. (Writing parallels come to mind, probably since I’m here doing it.) In Atomic Habits James Clear talks about writing daily, even if it ends up being only a sentence. I haven’t read The Artist’s Way but it seems like the stickiest cultural gift from that book is daily pages—“daily” being the operative word. Anne Lamott advocated for “Shitty First Drafts” as a means to just keep iterating and to prioritize momentum above all else.
Basically it’s all about one foot in front of the other (or firing up the beam saw, apparently), rather than getting bogged down under the crushing weight of a long horizon and high-minded goals.
Ido said his work is almost all commission. Taking time for his own projects to sculpt-on-spec just doesn’t really fly, as any available hours are allocated to paid projects. But… this is just a matter of perspective. Anything he made would surely be purchased—his work is in high demand and there are no pieces up for grabs in his studio. So when he was recently asked to create a few pieces for a gallery show in Japan he knew what would happen… even with many months to prepare, the work would slip through the cracks as commissions filled the time. So he asked for an advance against the inevitable sales. Not because he needed the income to take the time to work, he told me, but to mentally shift the project into the priority-bucket he reserved for commissioned pieces.
I get that. Sometimes you have to trick yourself.
I have an author friend who used to pretend he was writing emails to his friends to get out of the headspace of I’m writing a book. I borrowed that trick for a number of years and it served me well. But over the past three years I’ve gotten into a comfortable rhythm writing essays here on Substack, with Molly editing them right here on the platform. It’s grown into a well-honed practice.
When it came time for us to work on our upcoming book about our property and projects, I found staring at the vast Google Doc and the task of writing a book (a book!) overwhelming. Nearly impossible, really. I made almost no headway in that document.
Eventually we abandoned the Google Doc and broke the book into 15 likely essays, migrated them to Substack, and just started filling in the bones of the chapters that way, little by little, every day. We ended up writing and editing the entire manuscript as individual Substack posts. Nothing had really changed, but I fooled myself into thinking it was something different.
Sometimes you just have to trick yourself. And/or just start cutting, I suppose. Though if you’re not Ido, results may vary.
ABPFP: Always Be Promoting Friend’s Projects
Our friend Simone Stolzoff’s second book, How to Not Know, comes out in a week. It’s all about dealing with uncertainty (which is not unlike forging ahead blindly with a beam saw and a crusty hunk of redwood).
I’m only about halfway through reading it, but already finding plenty of overlap with topics I think and write about… I’m always talking just starting as a means to wade into daunting and uncertain project-waters. Our upcoming book deals a lot with the uncertainty of our property, especially post-wildfire. And so often we all think of uncertainty as a bug, when it’s kinda the whole thing—embrace it and, as I’m often pushing for, experiment.
It’s a good book. You can pre-order it here.
ARTIST RESIDENCY, FALL 2026
Back in October I announced our Spring artist residency. It’s currently happening and Jenny Odell is wrapping up her residency as she works on her next book.
Applications are open for the Fall 2026 residency and close May 30th. Here’s some details and where you can apply.
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Something we didn’t really talk about, but is highly relevant to my How did you do that? question… Ido’s father is Rick Yoshimoto, who worked alongside JB Blunk. JB Blunk is Ido’s godfather. And so Ido grew up in Inverness, in JB’s studio. That’s a deep history of wood carving. Ido’s blood is thick with sawdust.
Thanks so much for shouting out my book, Jeff!