The What Ifs of Writing, or Carving Stone
This first appeared in Lit Hub’s Craft of Writing newsletter—sign up here.
I’d been sculpting and drawing since I was sixteen but when, at forty, I started writing short stories and novels, all my desire to sculpt fell away. I still have my chisels, mallets and some pieces of stone, and sculpting became an integral element in my sixth novel, Hunger and Thirst, but it turns out I’m not one of those creatives who actively switch back and forth in their mediums. I haven’t picked up my tools in nearly twenty years, but I can still see the sculptor in my writing process and in what I create. So perhaps there is something for me still to learn from those years making visual art.
At art school in the 1980s I specialized in wood and stone carving and for a year after I left, I sculpted in the garden and garage of the squat where I lived. And later, when I got a “proper” job, and had children, I still managed one day a week in my studio making art. I always carried a sketchbook with me, and there was one year where I did a drawing a day and had an exhibition at the end of it. I sold a few sculptures over the years and was sometimes included in group shows, but I never made enough money to live off.
