Writing in Layers

Exuberance in Blues      

 in acrylics and fabric  18" x 24"  (not finished, I'm just getting started here.)

When I paint, I do the entire canvas first with an undercoated background, let it dry, then go back over it with an enlarged drawing, adding lines, painting the composition, then finally adding details.  That's me painting in layers.  I also have the same tendency when I write.

And that tendency is to be a "meat and potatoes" writer.  I can tell you a great skeleton story: this is what happens, why it happens and this is how it ends - but that's not much of a story, is it?  The real story comes out in the details and the finesse in which it is told.  The reader wants to really be there in the story with real characters, not paper cut outs.  And the writer also needs to give his characters LIFE, with all its foibles.  Set the scene - hear the crunch of the dry grasses as they are walked upon, the feel of the hot breeze upon one's face.  Uncertainty and fear.  How does that physically feel?

Usually after I beat a story to death (by continually gong back over it ad nauseum, filling in more details each time), I quickly lose interest in it.  This is truly the "work" part of writing.  Don't let anyone fool you; writing - the constant editing and revising - is hard work, just as perspective, drawing and graphing is the work part of art.  Creativity carried out to its end is a lesson in perseverance and commitment.