Sculpting with Words

Revision is the writers chisel ...

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have hired a professional writer to help mentor and coach me through writing this book. One of the first assignments he gave me was to read Stephen Kings On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. This book has been a godsend, and a port in the storm of questions about how to approach writing a novel. What form? What structure? What style? What is even proper grammar? Not only is King’s writing tight and conversational, it has a wicked sense of humor that literally had me laughing out loud. Mr. King also encouraged me to READ. From his perspective, half of what it takes to being a good writer, is to read. A lot.

I have found myself revisiting some of those authors I read begrudgingly in high school. Salinger, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald … I find myself drawn to Hemingway for his understated vocabulary and ability to paint a scene or character with the simplest of words and sentence structure. It is a style far above my pay grade to even try and emulate, but it is an inspirational north star. I have started reading Steinbeck’s magnum opus East of Eden. I am both fascinated and inspired by his mastery at painting a scene, especially of nature and the landscape. His ability to incorporate the scale of geological time in his description of the Salinas Valley without ever directly referencing geology is so powerful in imparting the significance of the land and what it represented for the people inhabiting it.

I have come to realize that writing may be an even more powerful mechanism by which to connect with an audience than the forms of art I am more experienced with (sculpture, painting, hot glass, photography, film.) A writer can use words to transport a reader into a whole new world, letting the readers mind fill the gaps of what is left unsaid with a detail far richer and more nuanced than what can be represented in the physical world.

One of the big takeaways I got from reading On Writing is how important revisions are in the process of producing good writing. This is something I knew intuitively and actually learned early on in undergraduate school. During my time at UCSD, my preoccupation with smoking pot, surfing, and partying did not align well with the rigor’s of a computer science degree. I ended up gravitating to humanities classes that focused more on writing papers than taking tests requiring me to study the proofs and equations of advanced calculus or the complex molecular reactions of organic chemistry.

I learned two things in taking classes that focused on papers as the primary grading rubric. First, I rarely - if ever, had to attend a lecture. Second, getting a high mark in class usually meant just doing one more additional revision of my paper than I anticipated the rest of my classmates would be doing. I don’t want to pretend that writing a college art history essay comparing the visual representation of color, shape in form in a Georgia O’Keeffe painting to a Beethoven symphony is anything close to writing a book; but the power of revision certainly stuck with me.

As I approach my embryonic writing style I am trying to find my own voice, not imitate someone else’s, using revision as a means by which to sculpt a rough draft into more crafted and polished prose. Much like when I would be sculpting marble and using the chisel to roughly hew the piece from a raw block of stone; using ever finer chisels, wrasps, and eventually sandpaper to finely carve and polish the surface. My deep fear, is that despite these efforts, my writing will still come across as amateurish and baroque versus powerful and elegant in its attempts to elevate itself to be something it is not.

With that disclaimer, below is my attempt at applying the writers chisel to the first draft of the opening paragraph of the prologue. I think it is getting closer, tell me what you think?

First Draft:

Waves of prismatic color and light danced over my arms as the effervescent trail of air bubbles streamed down from the tip of my surfboard to where I gripped its sides.  I thrust myself deeper into the sea, pushing my board down and forward in a powerful arc just under the turbulence of the breaking wave surging overhead.  Time was slowing down.  Just a few hours earlier, in the twilight of the morning, I had taken my second dose of LSD and I was tripping hard.  I was also paddling out at one of the most competitive and iconic surf breaks in Southern California - Lower Trestles.   A place I had never surfed before.

Current Draft:

I thrust myself deeper into the ocean, pushing my surfboard down and forward, escaping the pull of the wave surging above me.  A trail of air bubbles streamed down the sides of my board and over my hands, a shimmering kaleidoscope of colors.  Time was slowing down.  Just a few hours earlier, in the twilight of the morning, I had taken my second dose of LSD; I was tripping hard.  I was also paddling out at one of the most iconic surf breaks in Southern California - Lower Trestles.  A place I had never surfed before.