Carve one letter into stone

The Recipe

1. Book the nearest letter-carving or stone-cutting day-class: a sculpture workshop, a memorial mason who teaches, whoever runs one first.
2. Choose one letter and draw it out on the stone properly, because you cannot move it once you start.
3. Learn to hold the chisel at the angle that cuts rather than skids, and how hard to strike.
4. Cut the first strokes shallow, following your drawn line, feeling how the stone gives.
5. Deepen the cut in passes through the middle of the day, keeping both sides of the V even.
6. Break when your striking hand tires, and come back before it aches.
7. Clean up the corners and the ends until the letter is crisp.
8. Step back and check it reads from across the room, then fix what does not.
9. Run your thumb along the cut and take home the first thing you ever wrote in stone.