What Starwoven Revealed About the Writer I Am
A while back, I began reducing a story to its emotional core.
I thought I was uncovering a story.
Instead, the story was uncovering me.
Starwoven spoke, and I listened.
I’ve asked myself more than once, “Am I writer?”
I am.
But—not the writer I thought I was.
And that turned out to be the gift.
Yes, I am a writer.
I’m also a wanderer, and through writing I seek what fascinates me most: wonder.
As I began what I thought was an exercise in brevity and essence, I soon realized I was reaching for something else.
I was excavating for meaning.
Like an archaeologist, I began gently brushing away what I thought was debris, only to discover the artifact wasn't the story at all.
Not reducing.
Revealing.
Over the past few months, I’ve discovered that every story I love seems to rest on three things:
Meaning.
Sound.
And silence.
What something means.
How it is heard.
And what remains unsaid.
The beauty of prose, of poetry, is that meaning is uncovered—by the reader.
Meaning is not fixed.
Sound shapes meaning.
Silence gives both room to breathe.
Writing in this manner has shown me that it’s not reduction or compression that serves meaning best.
It's brushing away what obscures what matters.
Today, I think I’ve found the direction my writing has been pointing all along.
I think of it as archaeological writing.
I don’t think it’s a new discovery.
I think I’ve rediscovered an old instinct.
I see it in Emily Dickinson.
Bashō.
Great fairy tales.
Icelandic sagas.
The Daodejing.
They do not explain.
They expose.
They trust readers to excavate.
I began this experiment hoping to discover what remained when a story was stripped to its essence.
Instead, I discovered what remained when I was stripped to my essence.
And perhaps that’s what writing has been asking of me all along.
Have you ever begun a project only to discover it had been quietly changing you instead?
P.S. The new Starwoven is now available to read in its entirety online or as a downloadable PDF. See Starwoven: A Story in Verse and follow where the journey begins in earnest.
Your reflection resonates deeply with me. Sometimes we think we are shaping words, while quietly the words are shaping us. Perhaps the most enduring writing is not what explains, but what reveals what has always been waiting beneath the surface. Thank you for this beautiful piece.
Writing has become revelatory for you. Isn't that true of so many writers? We learn as much about the writer if not more than the material they were writing about.