Which means today, my post will be shorter and less prepared. I first saw Sunday in the Park with George when I was in high school. I love musical theater, and this is one of my favorites. It's a story of art and obsession, a love story, a moment of history. George Seurat was a pointilist in Paris during the explosion of Impressionist art. He created massive paintings by using tiny dots of color. The eye blends them into figures and structures -- turning red and blue into black and white and orange into light. Sondheim captures this in his music.
My reason for sharing this today is because in the play, one of the reasons George's girlfriend leaves him is because he has to "finish the hat". He works all the time. On these tiny little structures, hoping that the combination will make the finished work perfect.
Writers are like that (though hopefully not to the point of shutting out our loved ones). Each word, each phrase, each image, each paragraph has to be placed just so in order to complete the whole. I'm working on a revision right now and spent all of yesterday on one scene.
Isn't writing amazing when you can lose yourself in "finishing the hat?"
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I'll have to come back to watch the video, but I love the analogy of finishing the hat. Yes, every tiny little detail IS important. Drives us perfectionists mad.
ReplyDeleteGood thing we love every second of it.