The Craft: Learning Not to Think

[This is part of a continuing series on the craft of writing fiction.]

You know… There’s this great, great passage in The Book of Chuang Tzu. It’s about a cook, Cook Ting. [For those interested this tale is from Chapter 3 of The Book of Chuang Tzu, “The Nurturing of Life.”] His master, Lord Wen-hui sees him finishing up butchering a large ox one day and stops to admire his work.

Cook Ting is so absorbed in his task, he’s not even thinking about it. He’s just going about it naturally:

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