"Don't only practice your art, but force your way into
its secrets. For it, and knowledge can raise men to the divine."
- Ludwig Von Beethoven
This is the
best quote I’ve ever seen about craft. I’ve been doing this writing gig for almost
12 years (though I wrote before, I just took long hiatus’ and not seriously
pursuing publication). I now look back
on my earlier attempts at writing, and ask myself “WTF were you thinking Lisa! This is the worst crap ever!”
It’s a
journey, forcing your way into “…arts secrets.” Art comes in after the edit/rewrite phase;
it’s where the manuscript comes alive, the story vivid and crisp. The first draft is called “rough” for a
reason, it is the basis where art springs from, but by itself is not “art.”
The “knowledge”
part comes in using plot, flow, setting, character, voice and structure. Like instruments in an orchestra that issue the
notes on the page, the finished project is what the art is. Early attempts are just part of the
process. You learn and grow as you find
your voice. That unique part of writing
that tells the stories you need to tell, the way you need to tell them.
Yet the “Divine,”
eludes me. It is almost in my grasp; uncatchable,
unobtainable to my still novice hand. I
know what I want the final version to look like, but what I write/edit doesn’t
match my vision of that divine. Sure I
have been able to finish poems and short stories….the novel is what eludes me.
Perhaps this
is the reason I find it hard to complete a novel? Find it hard to start-finish, because I’m
afraid it won’t reach its divine potential?
I am missing the spark of the
divine, too tired to choose it, to find it within my grasping fingers. I am too much of a perfectionist, when it
comes to my writing. I can’t just let it
go. Though ironically, I wouldn’t have
it any other way.
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