rhetoric

Thursday night, I reread one of my favorite essay's, "A Worm from My Notebook," by Richard Selzer. He begins by breaking down the essentials of creative writing, and then goes on to show, in the remainder of the essay, just how it's done. The discussion in class on Friday about pinning the minor details of life down in words or images echoed Selzer's exposition on the subject: "There are no 'great' subjects for the creative writer; there are only the singular details of a single human life. Just as there are no great subjects, there are no limits to the imagination. Send it off, I would urge my students, to wander into the side trails, the humblest burrows to seek out the exceptional and the mysterious. A doctor/writer is especially blessed in that he walks about all day in a short story. There comes the moment when he is driven to snatch up a pencil and jot it down. Only he must take care that the pencil be in flames and that his fingers be burnt in the act."