An old writing exercise

 Some writers seem to be able to capture experiences that are mysterious — moments that could be called mystical experiences.

Mystics tend to describe those moments by saying that the sense of self falls away. Spiritual teachers set out exercises to help students find that experience for themselves.

It seems to me something similar happens when you pay attention to the details of a place — a stand of camphorweed, for example. Patricia Hampl, a writer and teacher of writers, makes a case for the old-fashioned exercise of writing descriptions.

 

Description in memoir is where the consciousness of the

writer and the material of the story are established in harmony,

where the self is lost in the material, in a sense. 

 

Each person is different. I admire those who search with spiritual exercises and who are devoted to the discipline of the mediation mat. I do better with the pen and notebook.

• Source: Patricia Hampl’s “The Dark Art of Description” was presented as the keynote address at the Bedell NonfictioNow Conference on Nov. 1, 2007 and published by the Iowa Review:

https://pubs.lib.uiowa.edu/iowareview/article/16503/galley/124902/view/.

Hampl has appeared in this collection on online notes before. For a sample, see “Thinking,” July 5, 2024.