A Living Form

“I think of writing as a sculptural medium. You are not building things. You are removing things, chipping away at language to reveal a living form.” So said Will Self, who is an English author and journalist.

Why so many edits? Many of us, me included, are wordy. It is a sizeable piece of marble. We try to chip that marble until it ENGAGES the reader. Until it turns heads and eyes and pages.

Two keywords apply to me: Slow down. If I do, my obstacles in being heard diminish. By God’s grace, may I learn to do that better.

Discord?

At some point in the semester I’ll get the question, ‘Why does every story have to have a conflict? Can’t we just write something different?’ And my answer is, ‘Yes you can, but will it work? Will anybody want to read it?” Vikram Chandra, an Indian American author. 

Conflict and stories? I am in the fifth draft now of my novelette which includes cyberwarfare and, at the personal level, self-conflict, a potent part of everyday life. 

As Tom Robbins, an American author said, “We’re our own dragons as well as our own heroes, and we have to rescue ourselves from ourselves.

We are self-destructive to a degree. Even Paul in the New Testament wrote of his self-conflict.

The feel of friction? Those sounds of discord? That ill-taste of strife. Central to my journey is resolving by the grace of God some of that inward and outward conflict. No one ever told me it would be easy.