I made time for this one, and I'm so glad. Took me about 30 minutes, which is good to notice when I tell myself on any given week I don't have time.What's thirty minutes? I love this practice! I'm so glad you are here, Nina.
Love: Loving is the most human, desired, defining, death-defying, natural, nascent, wonder of being human, not only because it practically preserves and extends our genes and stories, and not only because it happens spontaneously and also with the deepest intention where not only you are elated, deflated, underrated, elevated, aggravated, never satiated, and vulnerable, but also because love is a risk worth taking, even though you will be broken, be rejected, be left, be torn, be unrequited, at least you will behold the moon and the ripples across a still lake, and the flame of a candle dancing, awed.
So amazing! I love what the 30 minutes created! That last bit is so moving: "at least you will behold the moon and the ripples across a still lake, and the flame of a candle dancing, awed." Truly emotional and stunning and awe-creating.
Fiction: the short story has to be mind-blowing, honest, revealing, tight, original, warm, urgent, always pushing the narrative into a perfect form, not only because it zooms and gallops along choosing and picking the right words and phrases, and not only because it conveys and transports you to another world with a surprising, speedy, sensual, coherent, carefree, captivating, clever turn of events, but because it doesn’t have much time, with assumptions hinted at and clues planted, a lot has to be assumed and left hanging, without chapters and the lengthy dialogues of a novel, where everything is carefully explained, gently.
So good! With the long sentence and the string of adjectives, the emotions are off the charts. I feel how much the narrator loves fiction and, I didn't say earlier, but you, like Doyle, show how much play can appear on the page. A reminder of the joy of writing.
Memory: remembering is a murky, deceitful, raw, embellished, two-faced, childlike, scheming kaleidoscope of shifting perceptions, not only because it shields our selves from the bombs and shrapnel of our selves and other enemies, and not only because it is an ingenious and cunning revisionist of not only the ugly moments but the beautiful, vulnerable, gracious, musical, honest, whimsical, selfless moments of our lives, but because it is an alternate reality altogether, prone to tragedy and harmony and comical incontinuity, free from the bounds of physics and accountability and forgiveness of ourselves and others, forever.
Oh, this is so good. By personifying memory, I feel an intimate relationship with it, and the lists complicate all its many traits, which ring so true. What a wild and wily being it is!
I may have gotten lost and taken a wrong forking prong, but enjoyed unbridling my emotion. Your exercise a couple weeks ago inspired me to write a time-loop story in which I am now inserting essays about the changes I've seen in the world. I've noticed my essays have taken on a strident tone, and wondered if I should tone it down, but today you've given me the the freedom to accept it for what it is.
The Plow: You wept at the sight of a plowed field, harrowed, torn, cut, turned, poisoned, and crushed beneath the weight of machinery until the soil was dead, not only because insects, worms, and microbes were deemed detrimental to perfect control, and not only because each acre of corporate farmland must produce a given harvest weight, but because turning composted garden waste, kitchen scraps, and old dried leaves you collected last autumn is inefficient, and though the inept practice you indulge in may not hurt the living soil, it may introduce weed seeds and microscopic unknown, uncontrollable factors, feed worms and possibly dangerous insects, even though you justify your faulty practices due to the joy you experience when you see the seeds you’ve sown sprout, and as the seedlings grow and mature and flower and fruit, and you walk the garden paths picking dinner, you will live to regret your mistaken ways.
Amazing! I'm so glad a sentence has grown into a time-loop story and has found a home among essays. That's so cool! This long sentence works so well--and I learn so much. I see the soil differently after this sentence. I also love that the second person is so invested and the sight of the plowed field leads to weeping. It moves to care deeply because this speaker cares deeply
I suffer from polysyndeton on a regular basis. I'm glad to see there's a time and place for it and that it isn't fatal or even dangerous but in fact might be desired and enjoyed and raised to the level of literature. Now for the exercise.
Love love love Brian Doyle! His novel “Mink River” was such a revelation that I did my MFA close read essay on it. He takes long sentences to a high art. I recall one that went on for more than a page. His essays are indeed delightful. I wish I’d been able to see / meet him in person.
Thanks for sharing the gift of Brian Doyle. I have loved his work—and the obvious love he had for his work, which never seemed like work at all—forever.
I might have got a bit carried away with this one! Here's my sentence:
Libraries: Books are the most accessible means of learning independently, of easily, accidentally, perversely, unexpectedly, wondrously, coming across subjects you never knew about, of coming to understand the world and everything in it, not only because they are found in almost every culture and written in different languages, and cover a wide variety of subject matter and disseminate information gathered from a range of sources, and not only because they have been an integral part of academic life, pedagogy, religious teaching, and home schooling for centuries, but it’s possible to buy and borrow books new and secondhand at any time of day or night, and they are written and printed and sold for young and old audiences alike, and contain graphics for those who cannot read text, and provide diagrams to aid understanding, and use coloured inks to illustrate difference and identify similarities, and when books are read over the course of years and kept in the form of a collection, their contents have the power to influence, they increase our intelligence and thus our contribution to discourse and society, and, all in all, they are superb modes of entertainment. Encyclopaedic!
I made time for this one, and I'm so glad. Took me about 30 minutes, which is good to notice when I tell myself on any given week I don't have time.What's thirty minutes? I love this practice! I'm so glad you are here, Nina.
Love: Loving is the most human, desired, defining, death-defying, natural, nascent, wonder of being human, not only because it practically preserves and extends our genes and stories, and not only because it happens spontaneously and also with the deepest intention where not only you are elated, deflated, underrated, elevated, aggravated, never satiated, and vulnerable, but also because love is a risk worth taking, even though you will be broken, be rejected, be left, be torn, be unrequited, at least you will behold the moon and the ripples across a still lake, and the flame of a candle dancing, awed.
So amazing! I love what the 30 minutes created! That last bit is so moving: "at least you will behold the moon and the ripples across a still lake, and the flame of a candle dancing, awed." Truly emotional and stunning and awe-creating.
Lovely, profound, playful, well done!
Hi Nina, this is a tough one!
My attempt
Fiction: the short story has to be mind-blowing, honest, revealing, tight, original, warm, urgent, always pushing the narrative into a perfect form, not only because it zooms and gallops along choosing and picking the right words and phrases, and not only because it conveys and transports you to another world with a surprising, speedy, sensual, coherent, carefree, captivating, clever turn of events, but because it doesn’t have much time, with assumptions hinted at and clues planted, a lot has to be assumed and left hanging, without chapters and the lengthy dialogues of a novel, where everything is carefully explained, gently.
Rosalind,
So good! With the long sentence and the string of adjectives, the emotions are off the charts. I feel how much the narrator loves fiction and, I didn't say earlier, but you, like Doyle, show how much play can appear on the page. A reminder of the joy of writing.
This is brilliant Rosalind. I hope you post this sentence as a stand alone Note. I think it would go viral.
You are so kind Yasmín, I may just do that!!
Do!
Done!
Memory: remembering is a murky, deceitful, raw, embellished, two-faced, childlike, scheming kaleidoscope of shifting perceptions, not only because it shields our selves from the bombs and shrapnel of our selves and other enemies, and not only because it is an ingenious and cunning revisionist of not only the ugly moments but the beautiful, vulnerable, gracious, musical, honest, whimsical, selfless moments of our lives, but because it is an alternate reality altogether, prone to tragedy and harmony and comical incontinuity, free from the bounds of physics and accountability and forgiveness of ourselves and others, forever.
Oh, this is so good. By personifying memory, I feel an intimate relationship with it, and the lists complicate all its many traits, which ring so true. What a wild and wily being it is!
Thank you, subscriber, for sending me Brian Doyle's essay! For those of you who want to read the entire essay: https://www.welcometablepress.org/occasional-papers
I may have gotten lost and taken a wrong forking prong, but enjoyed unbridling my emotion. Your exercise a couple weeks ago inspired me to write a time-loop story in which I am now inserting essays about the changes I've seen in the world. I've noticed my essays have taken on a strident tone, and wondered if I should tone it down, but today you've given me the the freedom to accept it for what it is.
The Plow: You wept at the sight of a plowed field, harrowed, torn, cut, turned, poisoned, and crushed beneath the weight of machinery until the soil was dead, not only because insects, worms, and microbes were deemed detrimental to perfect control, and not only because each acre of corporate farmland must produce a given harvest weight, but because turning composted garden waste, kitchen scraps, and old dried leaves you collected last autumn is inefficient, and though the inept practice you indulge in may not hurt the living soil, it may introduce weed seeds and microscopic unknown, uncontrollable factors, feed worms and possibly dangerous insects, even though you justify your faulty practices due to the joy you experience when you see the seeds you’ve sown sprout, and as the seedlings grow and mature and flower and fruit, and you walk the garden paths picking dinner, you will live to regret your mistaken ways.
Amazing! I'm so glad a sentence has grown into a time-loop story and has found a home among essays. That's so cool! This long sentence works so well--and I learn so much. I see the soil differently after this sentence. I also love that the second person is so invested and the sight of the plowed field leads to weeping. It moves to care deeply because this speaker cares deeply
I suffer from polysyndeton on a regular basis. I'm glad to see there's a time and place for it and that it isn't fatal or even dangerous but in fact might be desired and enjoyed and raised to the level of literature. Now for the exercise.
Absolutely! It creates a great pattern with the "and" a softer stress. It also makes distinct each of the elements that you've strung together.
Love love love Brian Doyle! His novel “Mink River” was such a revelation that I did my MFA close read essay on it. He takes long sentences to a high art. I recall one that went on for more than a page. His essays are indeed delightful. I wish I’d been able to see / meet him in person.
I haven't read his novel, but now I will! Thank you! He brought so much joy to the page. I didn't know he passed away.
This is a lovely appreciation from 2017. https://pshares.org/blog/in-remembrance-of-brian-doyle/
Thanks much!
Love this and this is what I love about Substack. It's just like he says.
Thanks for sharing the gift of Brian Doyle. I have loved his work—and the obvious love he had for his work, which never seemed like work at all—forever.
I might have got a bit carried away with this one! Here's my sentence:
Libraries: Books are the most accessible means of learning independently, of easily, accidentally, perversely, unexpectedly, wondrously, coming across subjects you never knew about, of coming to understand the world and everything in it, not only because they are found in almost every culture and written in different languages, and cover a wide variety of subject matter and disseminate information gathered from a range of sources, and not only because they have been an integral part of academic life, pedagogy, religious teaching, and home schooling for centuries, but it’s possible to buy and borrow books new and secondhand at any time of day or night, and they are written and printed and sold for young and old audiences alike, and contain graphics for those who cannot read text, and provide diagrams to aid understanding, and use coloured inks to illustrate difference and identify similarities, and when books are read over the course of years and kept in the form of a collection, their contents have the power to influence, they increase our intelligence and thus our contribution to discourse and society, and, all in all, they are superb modes of entertainment. Encyclopaedic!