Michelangelo said “Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.”
I think this is a wonderful analogy for writing. Often when we think about writing, we know that the ideas, the motivation, and the ability are all inside us and yet we can’t quite get to them. How did Michelangelo discover a statue inside a stone? He didn’t sit and wait for it to emerge, he got on with removing all the bits he didn’t want until he was left with what he did want. Can you see where I’m going here? Maybe in order to get to what we want, we should turn our attention to what we don’t want, and work on getting rid of that.
How would this work in practice? I’m going to talk through one of my writing projects, and we’ll see what happens…
I have written the first draft of a short story. I know it’s a good story, I have no doubts about the story, but I also know that it’s not written well at all. It’s based on a true experience from my childhood with my grandmother. It wasn’t a big life-changing experience, but I’ve had it in my mind for years as being something that would make a great story if it was turned into a piece of fiction. I finally got around to writing it about eight months ago. Since that first draft, and despite receiving some really helpful feedback on it, I have been unable to touch it again. I’ve looked at it. Several times. I’ve wanted to redraft it, but I find myself completely stuck. If this story is my stone, how do I get to the statue inside? What don’t I want that I should aim to get rid of?
The emotions…
– I don’t want the pressure of feeling that I can’t possible do justice to this story that I’ve had inside me for so long.
– I don’t want to want to feel like I’m letting my grandmother down if I get it wrong.
– I don’t want to feel like I’m not good enough to write it how I want it to be written.
The life barriers…
– I don’t want other things to always take a higher priority.
– I don’t want tiredness to keep being an excuse.
The writing itself…
– I don’t want the story written from the perspective that I’ve currently written it in.
– I don’t want the story to start from the point where I’ve started it.
– I don’t want the flatness of some of the writing.
– I don’t want the parts in it that sound contrived.
– I don’t want the vagueness that permeates it.
But most of all…
– I don’t want another 30 years to pass without the story being written.
It feels wrong writing so many negative statements, I generally like to focus on the positive, but sometimes facing up to the negative might be the only way to get rid of it. Looking at those statements now, it somehow seems more manageable. There’s a lot there, but broken down like that, I can see a way through.
“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” Michelangelo.
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photo credit: see.lauren via photopin cc
