A couple of weeks ago, I submitted to my editor the second part of a three-part novel I have been working on for the last year. In the meantime and while I am waiting to get my edits back, I have been polishing up some essays for other publications and also taking this time to read some things that I wouldn’t usually dive into while I’m working on the novel. I am going back and reading some essays from favorite writers. Even though I call myself an essayist and novelist, the word essay still triggers in me memories of the belabored papers and exam questions I was obligated to write in high school and college. They are not fond memories. Putting those memories aside, the genre of creative nonfiction, in particular, narrative essay, holds some intense rich and satiating literature. This is a forum where many of the guardrails come off; where writers have some different breadth to reveal to us what is in their minds and lodged in their spirits. I think of Barry Lopez, Joan Didion, R. W. Emerson, Loren Eiseley, and Terry Tempest Williams — to highlight some of the giants. I would also call out David Sedaris and Jenny Lawson in that group within the humor phase of the spectrum. But the essayist that inspired me to sit down and write this is Annie Dillard. I picked up a copy of her more recent compilation, “The Abundance,” last year. I am rereading it this week. Dillard is one of those writers that will awe and thrill you with her prose as if it were new and fresh each time. Her depth and skill are astounding. She articulates her inner workings and her observations like no other is doing now. If you haven’t read good essay, do yourself a favor and find some, read it, and let it inspire you — or at least allow it to speak to those deepest parts tucked within you. And if you haven’t read Dillard's essays, start there.

I write with a heaviness this morning.

Some years ago, I read an article somewhere on Graham Greene’s method of writing. He’s one of my absolute favorite writers and one I have learned much from through the years. My memory is failing me on this, and I am having trouble finding a reference for it now, but in this passage, where he spoke on his personal writing philosophy, I recall reading something to the effect of, “I take beautiful people, and I put them in beautiful places, and then I torture them.” And it’s true – Greene was entirely loyal to betrayal in his works. It was part of what made him a beautiful and visceral writer.

I have had to torture a beautiful person in my own writing this morning – the main character of my novel. It is a scene I have been dreading the creation of for months.

It is finished.

But there is worse coming still.

Image by Cherry Laithang — *Image by* *Cherry Laithang*

The Artful Power of Essay

Torturous