Vision and Revision

Hadn't planned on putting up any pics of my paintings (you can click on it to see a closer view...and the rotten cropping job), but I had one of those head smacking revelations a few days ago. Kind of like in physics when I'd stare and stare at a formula (hours, days sometimes) in complete incomprehension, and then something would make those little grey cells click & I'd "get" it. A friend of mine recently completed a first draft of a novel (first completion for him - Yay, Christian!), and talked about moving from the "vision" stage to the "revision" stage. For whatever reason, hearing it put this way made the little grey cells click & I've been able to get some writing done. Not a ton, but a lot more than the hundred words or so I was managing to eke out before.

Everybody talks about the first draft being messy, long, etc., etc. I kept hearing "don't worry about getting it right, just get it done," and other pithy bits of good advice that made me pretty much nuts. I'm a perfectionist, and a fairly lean writer and I couldn't freakin' do it. Now I get it, though.

Writing really has to be like painting for me. I started off as a figurative painter - it wasn't until my Painting III class that I had a teacher encourage me to stop painting people & focus on the abstract work I was doing in the background. Flipped me out entirely, but he was right. With my abstract work, I would literally make a mess on the canvas - this painting was no exception. Basically, I got the colors, general composition, and feeling - not just the emotional shit, but that sense of core concept - down, and it was (usually) really fast work. And I almost always had a lot of fun in this part of the process.

Then came what I called the push 'n pull. I'd rotate the canvas until I found the right view and begin taking the threads in the piece I wanted to push back or pull forward. Sometimes I added new elements, but mostly it was all about the push 'n pull. Bring this line forward, paint over this space, draw with charcoal or pastel onto wet oil, blur this edge, sharpen that one. Here's where the real joy of painting came in. When I finally "got" the piece, the act of painting felt as though I was just part of a conduit for what wanted to come into being. That critical part of my mind wasn't absent, but relegated to a different space in the act of creating, kind of floating on the periphery. The critical mind was always making comments, but wasn't screaming in my head stopping my hand from moving or making a decision. I'm not trying to sound all woo-woo, I just don't know how to explain it better than that.

This is exactly what I need to do (and have started doing) with the novel. Work fast, make sure all the elements are present and then worry about what needs to be sharpened, blurred, written over, moved. The vision has to be allowed to come into being first, though. How the hell do I expect to be able to do the push 'n pull when I don't have the elements on the canvas (page) first?!

Okay, okay. Captain Obvious is shaking his head, but I'm just grateful that I think I finally "get" this whole vision/revision thing. It's a no-brainer. As in, I can't let the ol' brain get out of control, because that just stops the vision before it has a chance to come out and be. So, y'know, that's where I'm at.