Hacking Away

I believe it was Joyce Carol Oates who said that a sculptor has an idea or a vision of something that's already there in a piece of marble, and it's up to the sculptor to chip away and smooth and chip away some more, and sand and dust and refine until the vision is finally released.

It seems to me that that's what a novelist does. You begin with a kind of "vision"--an idea or a character, or, with some writers, a theme or a place. There's a story there--and you know it's there--but you chip away and smooth and chip away some more and sand and dust and refine and rewrite and revise until the vision is finally released. The important thing, the engine that drives your work from the beginning, is the sense that somewhere in that cold, lifeless hunk of marble there's a "vision" that must be allowed release--and you're the one given the job of releasing it.

Observers may come along and scratch their heads while you're at work. Family members, perhaps, who don't understand why you don't get a real job or do some useful volunteer work or learn how to hook rugs or something that you'll eventually complete. Critics may exchange sly smiles and when out of earshot question why you're deluding yourself that you're ever going to have anything more than a shapeless piece of marble (or a blank computer screen or an unpublishable manuscript). The ones who love you most and consequently want to shield you from pain may try to direct your interest elsewhere, to some goal that appears more "doable," some prize you can surely attain that will make you feel good about yourself.

But the sculptor with a vision will keep on hacking away (if you're a writer, you may hear the word "hack" used in a slightly different sense) until a shape begins to emerge, and then a more clearcut form, and then more and more detail until what your imagination and your spirit first envisioned becomes reality.

So you see, the sculptor is basically a workman, and so is the writer. There's really nothing magic or glamorous about it. You're a workman with a vision who simply keeps chipping away and hacking and refining until the vision is fulfilled.

I feel as though I've been doing a lot of hacking lately, and I'll admit I'm more than ready to see this vision fulfilled! So ... back to the marble.

BJ