what do i want to be a disciple of?

from: venice

lately i have been thinking about the details of words, the fine-points of constructing a story. it started with me reading vivian gornicks discerning the situation and the story, a non-fiction book about non-fiction writing. initially, gornick professes that a good personal piece must be organized according to an insight the writer wants her text to deliver – and in order to arrive at this insight, she must utilize the proper speaking voice (the proper persona). she also needs the right situation (context) and a matching story; which gornick describes as: the emotional experience that preoccupies the writer; the insight, the wisdom, the thing ones has come to say. 

it was with a heavy mind i started on this book. feeling lost and without anything of my own to say. i was without words about the future of this newsletter, having no ideas on where to steer it. i wanted a persona that explored, that illuminated the self – but i couldn’t understand what it was that i wanted to illuminate. 

after i had finished gornick, still unsure, but more aware of the workings of the craft; i moved onto mary oliver. her poetry handbook had been collecting dust ever since i bought it during that spring i read all of her poems like they were oxygen (which for me, without the metaphor, they were). in it she explains in her tender and attentive way of what makes the language of poetry sparkle – what makes a line of verse come alive. she gets down into the nitty gritty of linguistics: alliteration, assonance, consonance – how the word stone does not feel the same as rock and that what separates the everyday language from that of poetry is intent and intensity. 

when we pay attention to the details of our word choices, we are instructing the reader on how to read. ink is not temporary, as they say. and we want our words to guide us home, like stars in the night.

to deviate a little: maybe you have gathered (or not, if your new: hi!) i have been learning italian in italy for about six months now. i recently started (emphasis: trying to start) reading italo calvino in his mother tongue, and what strikes me most about his prose is his choice of words. without placing too much pressure on the meaning, i would like to invite you – the reader – to read the following sentence (with the same flow as you have, previously, read the preceding ones).

here is calvino from palomar: 

il signor palomar vede spuntare un’onda in lontananza, crescere, avvicinarsi, cambiare di forma e di colore, avvolgersi su stessa, rompersi, svanire, rifluire.

and now, here is the (simply, slightly imperfect) translation: 

mister palomar sees the breaking of a wave in the distance, growing, approaching, changing form and colour, turning in on itself, breaking, fading, flowing.  

both scentences are heavy with verbs, hefty with descriptions. in the readers minds eye, the life-span of a wave is projected. but i would like to point out that the italian – by its choice of words (notice how the last half of the sentence is a repetition of soft a’s, e’s, and s’s. notice the lack of the mute consonants k, p, and t – and how every word ends with a soft vowel). while in the english, the sentence forms differently in the mouth: growing, approaching, changing (a slight epistrophe in the repetition of -ing) the rich use of hard t’s and the effortless exhale of the last three words. 

the insight that i want to arrive at is that the small choice of words is not so small. any craft is made richer by the attention to detail, as ava williams coolly pointed out in her latest deep-dive into the importance of details in personal style: to me its about showing a level of care and attention (…) to me, the way in which we assess the details is where i see most thought. 

by caring for and assessing the details, the finished product will ooze of ever the more thought and attention. as oliver famously remarked: attention is the beginning of devotion.

and what do i have to say about devotion? 

the last leg of this letter is dedicated to it. arriving to the situation, here at the end of all things, would disappoint gornick – but satisfy me. so here it is anyway: when i was at a loss about the aim of this newsletter, i began listening to an episode from glennon doyles podcast we can do hard things. in the episode doyle opened up about her recent diagnosis of anorexia, reflecting on her religion of control and discipline the eating disorder enforced in her life. at one point she exclaims that she wants a new god that is not self-restraint or self-denial, that she doesn’t want to be a disciple of this doctrine anymore. and then the heart-stopping insight arrives: and I just kept thinking, if you are committed to discipline, that means that you are a disciple of something. what the fuck am i a disciple of?

(what am i a disciple of?) 

the question reverberated like a church-bell through my ears. 

like what gornick, like what oliver tried to get at – i want my words to serve something. without an insight – without some form of wisdom to be gained at the end of the page – the message will fall short, land flat, pewter out. i don’t want to my stories to ring false. i want them to be delivered as fierce as that arrow of a question hit my chest. 

in her conclusion, gornick writes: writing enters into us when it gives us information about ourselves we are in need of at the time that we are reading.

i want to be the archer of that information and i want my targets to feel my impact. 

intent intensity insight.

how can i become a disciple of this holy trinity of alliterative details? 

i think the answer never arrives easily, but i think the note i want to end on today is that making a discipline of 1) always choosing words with care, and 2) always having an insight which serves the story. this means that sloppiness or irreverence has no place when formulating ones sentences. words should be picked with care – because, as oliver points out, even the smallest differences affects the sum irrevocably (so you need to know what it is you are trying to say in order to find the proper modes for that). which brings us to the second creed: to not write halfheartedly. to never write without a keen insight that is to be transformed into storytelling. for me, this means that i do not want to produce something just for the sake of a letter arriving punctually in your inbox ever sunday evening. as i stated in the beginning of these love-letters (all the way back in june, before i threw myself out from familiarity and comfort and into this scary but wonderful experience) the mission wasn’t to fabricate after the fact – it was to tell stories from the context of the present. i am still very much interested in that, and the aim is still to offer you the insights i gleam from the front-lines of uncertainty.

(not only a lost wallet can be found in the retracing of steps)

to summarize, to gently sketch, 

this is the draft of my new discipline of details: 

intent, intensity, insight. 

all three to be delivered to you the next time i see you, 

with an insight freshly formed. 

love,

e.