Tuesday, June 17, 2014

The Writer and Michelangelo; an Editing Journey

In 1993, I spent a week in Rome. As the years pass, many of my memories fade of that trip, but standing beside and beneath Michelangelo's statutes of The Pieta and Moses? That experience will never go away. How can you ever forget such vibrant warm life created out of marble? I marvel at his ability to see those characters hiding inside that cold block of raw material. I'm staggered by the time it took to complete them, as well as the time and practice it took to obtain the technical skills to create them. That is not a miracle but determination and dedication.

My daughter calls it positive space. She should know. She's an art teacher. To me, I know only that Michelangelo had to remove what didn't belong to get to what did.

As writers in the editing phase, we must do that as well. We create our marble block, although ours is a gooey mushy clump-like clay, but once the plot and characters are there? The clump becomes hard, unyielding marble that a writer must chisel. It isn't a passive endeavor. You have to sweat to chip those parts away. Your muscles quiver with the effort. Your mind becomes exhausted.

When you finish the big chunk removal, you move on to the tiny and infinitesimal. Each word, each sentence, each paragraph, each chapter until you reach the warmth and shine of your true story beneath the crud. As you do it? The time passes--sometimes months--until your heart beats harder and your soul cries out as you see the small glimpses of what your story will become. Like Michelangelo, you apply the chisel to find the heart hiding within the cold block of marble.

I will never reach the perfection of Michelangelo, but I will try. I will never stop trying.

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