Partly Cloudy Greatness

Have you ever had a vision that symbolized greatness but lacked clarity? The idea of a finished product that lacked the details required to produce it? You sense that it's there, but have no idea how to coax it out. Like the statue trapped inside the unshaped granite, this is how my book feels.

It's a vision of beauty, but I can't outline the face; a pose of knowledge, yet no stance at all; a creation of greatness, existing only as clouds in my mind. Chasing those clouds may feel parallel to running after real shapes in the sky while confined to the ground.

Yet in many ways that's exactly what writing is. You chase an imaginary cloud, shaping and describing it through prose. Leveraging language to create imagery that may never have been reality. In this way writing is more like sculpting than chiseling from stone. You begin with wet, messy words, mashing and smearing them together in hopes of creating something more. The result beyond that of simply dried mud, or words splashed on a page.

May this be the last time I begin again. The sketch and form are ready, time to moisten the clay and get to work.