A man by tumbling his thoughts, and forming them into expressions, gives them a new fermentation, which works them into a finer body. Jeremy Collier
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I am not much of a beer “connaisseur” but I know that any brew needs fermentation to be palatable.
The same goes for ideas. They need to ferment and percolate for some time to mature.
An idea is like a rough diamond. It has to be cleaned, cut and polished to become appealing. The same goes for writing. The text needs to be thoroughly scrutinized before being released for consumption.
The brain is an exquisite piece of machinery that runs silently 24 hours a day. Even while asleep your brain processes and reprocesses many of the thoughts that you had the previous day. Because of this non-stop activity you often wake up in the middle of the night with answers to your concerns.
When it comes to writing, nobody is harder on himself than a blogger. He/she tries his best but the results vary. An essay is like a cake; sometimes it turns out beautifully and sometimes it is a disappointment… mainly because it was not kneaded enough or fermented long enough.
When writing, being bilingual or trilingual is a big advantage. When you cannot find the right word in English, you search for it in your mother tongue or if you are fortunate enough in a third dialect and you are very likely to find the correct word.
But you also have to be attentive because similar spelling or sounding words can have a different meaning in a different language.
When I first came to the US, my eyes caught a newspaper headline: “Cons escape!”
I found this a little puzzling. In French, a con is a stupid person, a jerk.
So jerks escaped? Big deal! Cons are all around us.
Few writers can produce a whole document in a single draft. Presidential speeches for instance need to ferment and are constantly massaged to sound right.
Speaking from the cuff or impulsive digital graffiti is a bad idea! In cyberspace whatever you say can be retrieved and used against you.
It is much better to sleep on a first draft and let it froth for a while. You can tackle it again the next day and see your flubs more clearly… then you hopefully can correct them.
Fermentation is akin to preparation and,
“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” Benjamin Franklin
Alain