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Welcome to The Pursuit

This is going to be a thing, now. So let’s get at it, I guess.

So, if it’s going to be a thing, I guess step one is figuring out just what kind of thing it is. I suppose it’s a blog but I already have one of those so what’s with the subdomain and new theme and all that?

Well, I guess it’s because I like a clean slate. Like those people who buy new notebooks for each new project even though they have plenty of unfinished notebooks stacked on a shelf somewhere. Think of this as a gorgeous new Moleskine, as devoid of ink as it is full of potential.

And with that, we’ve cracked the spine. 

I guess this particular notebook owes its existence to an email from a friend, muse and role model, someone who probably downplays her role in my evolution as a writer but who gave me the confidence to really adopt the label in the first place

You need to write again. Somehow. Somewhere.

That’s all.

Carry on.

It was the sort of kick in the ass that only a truly caring friend can administer and it was enough to get me thinking back, again, on why we write. On why I write. 

There’s a passage in the book Hamilton: The Revolution in which the brilliant Lin Manuel Miranda is talking about getting to know John Kander, who wrote Cabaret and Chicago. He writes that “this guy is 80-plus years old and he’s still chasing moments, and chasing the way to articulate those moments perfectly.” 

I was struck by that idea in a pretty major way — “epiphanous,” in fact. The idea of not just chasing moments, of pursuing knowledge, of seeking experiences, but also chasing their perfect articulation? That fucking sang to me.

It’s like my arm tattoo (and Ira Glass, and apparently others) says, “great stories happen to those who can tell them.” There’s something so rewarding about the pursuit of the perfect phrasing. Or the perfect anecdote. Or the perfect metaphor. There’s something so… soul enriching… about the moment that you make an idea snap together in someone else’s head. It’s why I write and it’s why I teach.

And so this is my pursuit. Finding ideas and stories and experiences that matter to me, or that resonate with me, then finding out how to make them matter or resonate to you. 

Writing is a pursuit. Writing is the pursuit. So let’s see what we can capture. 

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Sharon Devellis

I’m on the edge of my seat waiting for what this journey will bring!