How I Wrote the Moth Essay -- and Why by Annie Dillard

Otherwise, I'd forget everything, and life wouldn't accumulate, but merely pass.

"Clarity is the sovereign courtesy of the writer," said J. Henri Fabre, the threat French entomologist, "I do my best to achieve it."

You may hold the popular view that art is self-expression, or a way of understanding the self — in which case the artist need do noth¬ing more than babble uncontrolledly about the self and then congrat¬ulate himself that, in addition to all his oth

When he was sixteen, he ran away from home to Paris, led a dissolute life, shot his male lover (the poet Verlaine), drank absinthe which damaged his brain, deranged his senses with drunkenness and sleeplessness, and wrote mad vivid poetry which altered

When he was sixteen, he ran away from home to Paris, led a dissolute life, shot his male lover (the poet Verlaine), drank absinthe which damaged his brain, deranged his senses with drunkenness and sleeplessness, and wrote mad vivid poetry which altered

If you are used to analyzing texts, you will be able to formulate a clear statement of what your draft turned out to be about.

This sort of fanaticism attracted and appalled me.

I don't recommend, or even approve, writing per¬sonally.

If I want to write about arctic exploration, say, or star chem¬istry, or monasticism, I can find masses of pertinent data under that topic.

It had been sheer good luck that the different aspects of the histori¬cal truth fit together so nicely.

Actually I was there because I had picked the place from an atlas, and I was alone because I hadn't yet met my husband.

Weil had deliberately starved herself to death to call attention to the plight of French workers.

This sort of fanaticism attracted and appalled me.

You may hold the popular view that art is self-expression, or a way of understanding the self — in which case the artist need do noth¬ing more than babble uncontrolledly about the self and then congrat¬ulate himself that, in addition to all his other wond

In this atypical case, however, there were very few extraneous pas¬sages.

It saves and makes available all those years of reading.

You're so pleased and grateful to be writing at all, especially at the beginning, that you babble.

I was living alone, as described, on an island in Puget Sound, near the Canadian border.

I try not to hang on the reader's arm and bore him with my life story, my fancy self-indulgent writing, or my opinions.

When he was sixteen, he ran away from home to Paris, led a dissolute life, shot his male lover (the poet Verlaine), drank absinthe which damaged his brain, deranged his senses with drunkenness and sleeplessness, and wrote mad vivid poetry which alt

She was brilliant, but a little nuts; her doctrines were harsh.

And if I browse I can often find images from other fields that may fit into what I'm writing, if only as metaphor or simile.

Of course you can reinforce connections with language: the bathroom moths are like a jumble of but¬tresses for cathedral domes; the female moth is like an immolating monk, like a hollow saint, a flame-faced virgin gone to God; Rimbaud burnt out his

Simone Weil was a twentieth-century French intellectual, born Jewish, who wrote some of the most interesting Christian theology I've ever read.

So the writer is like the moth, and like a religious contemplative: emptying himself so he can be a channel for his work.

Usually I end up throwing away the beginning: the first part of a poem, the first few pages of an essay, the first scene of a story, even the first few chapters of a book.

I added stuff, too, to strengthen and clarify the point.

"Clarity is the sovereign courtesy of the writer," said J. Henri Fabre, the threat French entomologist, "I do my best to achieve it."

I took it out because the tone was too snappy, too clever; it reduced everything to celibacy, which was really a side issue; it made the reader forget the moth; and it called too much attention to the narrator.

You don't need "something to say"— that will just lead you to reiterating clichés.

I began the journals five or six years after college, finding myself highly trained for taking notes and for little else.

In the classroom I was teaching poetry writing, exhorting myself (in the guise of exhorting my students), and convincing myself by my own rhetoric: commit yourself to a useless art!

A week after I wrote the first dull I considered making it part of the book (Holy the Firm) I had been starting.

The danger is that you'll get lost in the contemplation of your wonderful self.

So the writer is like the moth, and like a religious contemplative: emptying himself so he can be a channel for his work.

In the classroom I was teaching poetry writing, exhorting myself (in the guise of exhorting my students), and convincing myself by my own rhetoric: commit yourself to a useless art!

In the classroom I was teaching poetry writing, exhorting myself (in the guise of exhorting my students), and convincing myself by my own rhetoric: commit yourself to a useless art!

I took out a couple of paragraphs—one about why I didn't have a dog, another that ran on about the bathroom spider.

And, there in the journal, was a crucial detail: on that camping trip, I'd been reading about Rim¬baud.

With my old journal beside me, I took up my current journal and scribbled and doodled my way through an account of my present life and the remembered moth.

When he was sixteen, he ran away from home to Paris, led a dissolute life, shot his male lover (the poet Verlaine), drank absinthe which damaged his brain, deranged his senses with drunkenness and sleeplessness, and wrote mad vivid poetry which alt

When he was sixteen, he ran away from home to Paris, led a dissolute life, shot his male lover (the poet Verlaine), drank absinthe which damaged his brain, deranged his senses with drunkenness and sleeplessness, and wrote mad vivid poetry which alt

If I want to write about arctic exploration, say, or star chem¬istry, or monasticism, I can find masses of pertinent data under that topic.

Walking back to my desk, where I had been answering letters, I realized that the burning moth was a dandy visual focus for all my recent thoughts about an empty, dedicated life.

To begin, you don't need a well-defined point.

When he was sixteen, he ran away from home to Paris, led a dissolute life, shot his male lover (the poet Verlaine), drank absinthe which damaged his brain, deranged his senses with drunkenness and sleeplessness, and wrote mad vivid poetry which alt

I was living alone, as described, on an island in Puget Sound, near the Canadian border.

Arthur Rimbaud—the French symbolist poet, a romantic, hot-headed figure who attracted me enormously when I was sixteen—had been young and self-destructive.

The hard part is devising the wretched thing in the first place.

She was brilliant, but a little nuts; her doctrines were harsh.

Of course you can reinforce connections with language: the bathroom moths are like a jumble of but¬tresses for cathedral domes; the female moth is like an immolating monk, like a hollow saint, a flame-faced virgin gone to God; Rimbaud burnt out his

It doesn't hurt much to babble in a first draft, so long as you have the sense to cut out irrelevancies later.

If you try to force a reader's feelings through dramatic writing ("writhe," "ecstasy," "scream"), you make a fool of yourself, like someone at a party trying too hard to be liked.

But the next night, after pages of self-indulgent drivel, I'd written a fuller description, a description of the moth which got stuck in candle wax.

A week after I wrote the first dull I considered making it part of the book (Holy the Firm) I had been starting.

The most inept writing has an inadvertent element of suspense: the reader constantly asks himself, where on earth is this going?)

If you try to force a reader's feelings through dramatic writing ("writhe," "ecstasy," "scream"), you make a fool of yourself, like someone at a party trying too hard to be liked.

There were offers from editors, publishers, and Hollywood and network producers.

The most inept writing has an inadvertent element of suspense: the reader constantly asks himself, where on earth is this going?)

I got down on my hands and knees to examine them and recognized some as empty moth bodies.

So I think that this moth piece is a risky one to read: it seems to enforce these romantic and giddy notions of art and the artist.

Most of the time you'll have to add to the beginning, ensuring that it gives a fair idea of what the point might be, or at least what is about to happen.

He is my guest; I try to entertain him.

The journal entry had some details I could use (bristleworms on the ground, burnt moths' wings sticking to pans), some phrases (her body acted as a wick, the candle had 2 flames, the moth burned until I blew it out), and, especially, some verbs (hi

Usually I end up throwing away the beginning: the first part of a poem, the first few pages of an essay, the first scene of a story, even the first few chapters of a book.

I was examining every event for possible meaning.

I was examining every event for possible meaning.

In the classroom I was teaching poetry writing, exhorting myself (in the guise of exhorting my students), and convincing myself by my own rhetoric: commit yourself to a useless art!

I was taking extensive notes on Weil.

In this atypical case, however, there were very few extraneous pas¬sages.

This sort of fanaticism attracted and appalled me.

I try not to hang on the reader's arm and bore him with my life story, my fancy self-indulgent writing, or my opinions.

It was a feeble justification and I knew it, because you certainly don't need to live alone either to write or to pray.

I thought about myself a lot (for someone thirty years old), because I couldn't figure out what I was doing there.

They tempted me with world travel, film and TV work, big bucks.

The journal entry had some details I could use (bristleworms on the ground, burnt moths' wings sticking to pans), some phrases (her body acted as a wick, the candle had 2 flames, the moth burned until I blew it out), and, especially, some verbs (hi

I try to give the reader a story, or at least a scene (the flimsiest narrative occasion will serve), and something to look at.

Walking back to my desk, where I had been answering letters, I realized that the burning moth was a dandy visual focus for all my recent thoughts about an empty, dedicated life.

If you are used to analyzing texts, you will be able to formulate a clear statement of what your draft turned out to be about.

The moth essay I wrote that November day was an "odd" piece— "freighted with heavy-handed symbolism," as I described it to myself just after I wrote it.

So I think that this moth piece is a risky one to read: it seems to enforce these romantic and giddy notions of art and the artist.

You're so pleased and grateful to be writing at all, especially at the beginning, that you babble.

Why was I living alone, when I am gregarious?

In the classroom I was teaching poetry writing, exhorting myself (in the guise of exhorting my students), and convincing myself by my own rhetoric: commit yourself to a useless art!

She was brilliant, but a little nuts; her doctrines were harsh.

Early that November morning I noticed the hollow insects on the bath¬room floor.

And if I browse I can often find images from other fields that may fit into what I'm writing, if only as metaphor or simile.

Of course you can reinforce connections with language: the bathroom moths are like a jumble of but¬tresses for cathedral domes; the female moth is like an immolating monk, like a hollow saint, a flame-faced virgin gone to God; Rimbaud burnt out his

You'll include things for the lousy reason that they actually happened, or that you feel strongly about them; you'll forget to ensure that the reader feels anything whatever.

Now I have thirty-some journal volumes, all indexed.

But the next night, after pages of self-indulgent drivel, I'd written a fuller description, a description of the moth which got stuck in candle wax.

The most inept writing has an inadvertent element of suspense: the reader constantly asks himself, where on earth is this going?)

Early that November morning I noticed the hollow insects on the bath¬room floor.

The early drafts, and the Harper's version, had a different ending, a kind of punch line that was a series of interlocking statements:
I don't mind living alone.

Often you don't know where the work is going, so you can't tell what's irrelevant.

These, then, were issues for me at that time: dedication, purity, sacrifice.

I went to my pile of journals, hoping I'd taken some nice, specific notes about the moth in the candle.

Not feelings, not opinions, not sentiments, not judgments, not arguments, but specific objects and events: a cat, a spider web, a mess of insect skeletons, a candle, a book about Rimbaud, a burning moth.

It was a feeble justification and I knew it, because you certainly don't need to live alone either to write or to pray.

That's how I justified my loneliness to myself.

I actually had a gold cat at that time, named Kindling.

Of course you can reinforce connections with language: the bathroom moths are like a jumble of but¬tresses for cathedral domes; the female moth is like an immolating monk, like a hollow saint, a flame-faced virgin gone to God; Rimbaud burnt out his

Just because you have a bunch of tiles in your lap doesn't mean your mosaic will be better if you use them all.

I was there to turn from literary and commercial suc¬cess and to rededicate myself to art and to God.

When he was sixteen, he ran away from home to Paris, led a dissolute life, shot his male lover (the poet Verlaine), drank absinthe which damaged his brain, deranged his senses with drunkenness and sleeplessness, and wrote mad vivid poetry which altered th

Later I go back to the beginning and locate the reader in time and space.

In order to clarity my thinking I jotted down some notes:
moth in candle:
the poet— materials of world, of bare earth at feet, sucked up, transformed, subsumed to spirit, to air, to light
the mystic—not through reason
but through emptiness
the mart

And if I browse I can often find images from other fields that may fit into what I'm writing, if only as metaphor or simile.

The paragraphs and sen¬tences are tesserae — tiles for a mosaic.

Perhaps I'd try to write a short narrative about it.

I took it out because the tone was too snappy, too clever; it reduced everything to celibacy, which was really a side issue; it made the reader forget the moth; and it called too much attention to the narrator.

There were offers from editors, publishers, and Hollywood and network producers.

So I think that this moth piece is a risky one to read: it seems to enforce these romantic and giddy notions of art and the artist.

It had actually been on that particular solo camping trip that I'd read the Rimbaud novel.

Not feelings, not opinions, not sentiments, not judgments, not arguments, but specific objects and events: a cat, a spider web, a mess of insect skeletons, a candle, a book about Rimbaud, a burning moth.

I try to give the reader a story, or at least a scene (the flimsiest narrative occasion will serve), and something to look at.

The journal entry had some details I could use (bristleworms on the ground, burnt moths' wings sticking to pans), some phrases (her body acted as a wick, the candle had 2 flames, the moth burned until I blew it out), and, especially, some verbs (hi

I took out a couple of paragraphs—one about why I didn't have a dog, another that ran on about the bathroom spider.

Near the end I added a passage about writing class: which of you want to give your lives and become writers?

You start anywhere, and join the bits into a pattern by your writing about them.

If I want to write about arctic exploration, say, or star chem¬istry, or monasticism, I can find masses of pertinent data under that topic.

I went to my pile of journals, hoping I'd taken some nice, specific notes about the moth in the candle.

Weil had deliberately starved herself to death to call attention to the plight of French workers.

Usually I end up throwing away the beginning: the first part of a poem, the first few pages of an essay, the first scene of a story, even the first few chapters of a book.

Arthur Rimbaud—the French symbolist poet, a romantic, hot-headed figure who attracted me enormously when I was sixteen—had been young and self-destructive.

In the classroom I was teaching poetry writing, exhorting myself (in the guise of exhorting my students), and convincing myself by my own rhetoric: commit yourself to a useless art!

I've found that if I take pains to be precise about things, feel¬ings will take care of themselves.

I prefaced these notes with the comical word "Hothead."

With my old journal beside me, I took up my current journal and scribbled and doodled my way through an account of my present life and the remembered moth.

I was then in full flight from success, from the recent fuss over a book of prose I'd published the previous year called Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

I was then in full flight from success, from the recent fuss over a book of prose I'd published the previous year called Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

I was then in full flight from success, from the recent fuss over a book of prose I'd published the previous year called Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

There were offers from editors, publishers, and Hollywood and network producers.

Walking back to my desk, where I had been answering letters, I realized that the burning moth was a dandy visual focus for all my recent thoughts about an empty, dedicated life.

I was then in full flight from success, from the recent fuss over a book of prose I'd published the previous year called Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

I got down on my hands and knees to examine them and recognized some as empty moth bodies.

I don't recommend, or even approve, writing per¬sonally.

Would I ever meet some¬one, or should I reconcile myself to all this solitude?

I took it out because the tone was too snappy, too clever; it reduced everything to celibacy, which was really a side issue; it made the reader forget the moth; and it called too much attention to the narrator.

Of course you can reinforce connections with language: the bathroom moths are like a jumble of but¬tresses for cathedral domes; the female moth is like an immolating monk, like a hollow saint, a flame-faced virgin gone to God; Rimbaud burnt out his

You don't need "something to say"— that will just lead you to reiterating clichés.

(All this requires is nerves of steel and lots of coffee.)

Revising is a breeze if you know what you're doing — if you can look at your text coldly, analytically, manipulatively.

In the classroom I was teaching poetry writing, exhorting myself (in the guise of exhorting my students), and convincing myself by my own rhetoric: commit yourself to a useless art!

Arthur Rimbaud—the French symbolist poet, a romantic, hot-headed figure who attracted me enormously when I was sixteen—had been young and self-destructive.

In sacrifice alone is meaning!

In this atypical case, however, there were very few extraneous pas¬sages.

The early drafts, and the Harper's version, had a different ending, a kind of punch line that was a series of interlocking statements:
I don't mind living alone.

And if I browse I can often find images from other fields that may fit into what I'm writing, if only as metaphor or simile.

Not feelings, not opinions, not sentiments, not judgments, not arguments, but specific objects and events: a cat, a spider web, a mess of insect skeletons, a candle, a book about Rimbaud, a burning moth.

I fiddled with one fact, for sure: I foully slandered my black cat, Small, by saying she was "gold"—to match the book's moth and little blonde burnt girl.

The connections were all there, and seemed solid enough: I saw a moth burnt and on fire; I was reading Rimbaud hoping to rededicate myself to writ¬ing (this one bald statement of motive was unavoidable); I live alone.

Would I ever meet some¬one, or should I reconcile myself to all this solitude?

It had actually been on that particular solo camping trip that I'd read the Rimbaud novel.

"Clarity is the sovereign courtesy of the writer," said J. Henri Fabre, the threat French entomologist, "I do my best to achieve it."

I went to my pile of journals, hoping I'd taken some nice, specific notes about the moth in the candle.

Weil had deliberately starved herself to death to call attention to the plight of French workers.

Usually I end up throwing away the beginning: the first part of a poem, the first few pages of an essay, the first scene of a story, even the first few chapters of a book.

Since I've studied texts, I know what I'm doing when I revise.

In order to clarity my thinking I jotted down some notes:
moth in candle:
the poet— materials of world, of bare earth at feet, sucked up, transformed, subsumed to spirit, to air, to light
the mystic—not through reason
but through emptiness
the

The reader must be startled to watch this apparently calm, matter-of-fact account of the writer’s life and times turn before his eyes into a mess of symbols whose real subject matter is their own rela¬tionship.

The moth essay I wrote that November day was an "odd" piece— "freighted with heavy-handed symbolism," as I described it to myself just after I wrote it.

If you are used to analyzing texts, you will be able to formulate a clear statement of what your draft turned out to be about.

It seemed to fit the book's themes.

Simone Weil was a twentieth-century French intellectual, born Jewish, who wrote some of the most interesting Christian theology I've ever read.

"Clarity is the sovereign courtesy of the writer," said J. Henri Fabre, the threat French entomologist, "I do my best to achieve it."

If I want to write about arctic exploration, say, or star chem¬istry, or monasticism, I can find masses of pertinent data under that topic.

I began the journals five or six years after college, finding myself highly trained for taking notes and for little else.

In order to clarity my thinking I jotted down some notes:
moth in candle:
the poet— materials of world, of bare earth at feet, sucked up, transformed, subsumed to spirit, to air, to light
the mystic—not through reason
but through emptiness
the

In order to clarity my thinking I jotted down some notes:
moth in candle:
the poet— materials of world, of bare earth at feet, sucked up, transformed, subsumed to spirit, to air, to light
the mystic—not through reason
but through emptiness
the

It went extraordinarily well; it was not typical.

Ultimately I sent it to Harper's magazine, which published it.

You may hold the popular view that art is self-expression, or a way of understanding the self — in which case the artist need do noth¬ing more than babble uncontrolledly about the self and then congrat¬ulate himself that, in addition to all his oth

In the classroom I was teaching poetry writing, exhorting myself (in the guise of exhorting my students), and convincing myself by my own rhetoric: commit yourself to a useless art!

When he was in his twenties, he turned his back to the Western world and vanished into Abyssinia as a gunrunner.

The journal entry had some details I could use (bristleworms on the ground, burnt moths' wings sticking to pans), some phrases (her body acted as a wick, the candle had 2 flames, the moth burned until I blew it out), and, especially, some verbs (hi

The early drafts, and the Harper's version, had a different ending, a kind of punch line that was a series of interlocking statements:
I don't mind living alone.

Walking back to my desk, where I had been answering letters, I realized that the burning moth was a dandy visual focus for all my recent thoughts about an empty, dedicated life.

Now I have thirty-some journal volumes, all indexed.

But the next night, after pages of self-indulgent drivel, I'd written a fuller description, a description of the moth which got stuck in candle wax.

The connections were all there, and seemed solid enough: I saw a moth burnt and on fire; I was reading Rimbaud hoping to rededicate myself to writ¬ing (this one bald statement of motive was unavoidable); I live alone.

If you try to force a reader's feelings through dramatic writing ("writhe," "ecstasy," "scream"), you make a fool of yourself, like someone at a party trying too hard to be liked.