Ben Marvan

This is why I'm treating writing as a sequence of small decisions, not a single leap. Each week I publish a Workshop Log: the raw notes, the breakthroughs, the mistakes. The goal is not a masterpiece. The goal is to build the muscles that make masterpieces possible. Thoughtful decisions compound.

Austen understood that despair is part of the process, not a sign to stop. Myworkshop guide calls it 'the struggle'— sitting with what is not working instead of reaching for a fix. I am learning to let the snag sit. The breakthrough usually arrives after I stop wrestling.

Workshop Log: How a Library Taught Me to See A noticing drill

Catching up on Sunday reading? My latest report explores what happens when a writer really notice. I spent ten minutes in a library. No notebook. No phone. Just a man at a table with a cold mug, and the discipline to see only what was there.
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That distinction matters. When pressure is manageable, I still notice the cracks in the pavement. When it tips over, I stop looking. I just fill pages. The words are there, but the seeing isn't. So I treat that narrowing as a warning sign. A cue to step back.

Would like that!

Thanks. Not at all. Currently on a bus, appologies. Leave me a message and i will respond as soon as I can!

Not yet. Still very much learning the craft. I'm publishing what learn as a 'workshop log' on Substack. Final pieces are coming. Great to connect with you!

Hi! I'm learning literary journalism.

You are not the only one. Literary journalism taught me that my job is to witness, not to project. If a story is best told through a woman's experience, that is not invention, it is listening. Sounds like you are shaping from deep observation. That is the work.

For some reason it's bureaucracy for me!

For me, it is cutting 'furniture details' - the ones that feel true but carry no weight. The workshop manual I am working from calls it the 'So What?' test. If a detail does not change what the reader understands, it goes. Even if I loved writing it. Especially then.

What's something you'll likely have to tone down in revisions? #WritingPrompt

Workshop Log: How a Library Taught Me to See A noticing drill

He holds it anyway.

Three words. Last line of the scene. Took forty-five minutes to write. Anyway is not a fact. It is a judgment. I kept it because it is the only word that leans toward meaning.

Full story + the making-of here: substack.com/home/post/p-...
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This is a fantastic perspective. Stress often masquerades as 'productivity,' but as you noted, it’s a diminishing return that eventually compromises the very craft we're trying to protect.

Workshop Log: How a Library Taught Me to See A noticing drill

Published today: a man in a library who didn't blink for a minute. And the story behind how that scene was built, the drafts I killed, the sentence that almost broke me, the one word I kept even though it broke the rules. open.substack.com/pub/benmarva...

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Tomorrow: a man in a library who didn't blink for a minute. And the story behind how that scene was built—the drafts I killed, the sentence that almost broke me, the one word I kept even though it broke the rules.
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Exactly. Sometimes the story is in what doesn't happen.

Question for anyone who writes:
What's one detail you noticed this week that you almost decorated with a feeling?
I almost called the library clock 'impatient.' It's just sharp. The feeling has to come from the reader.
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The scratches near the corner of his table—someone else sat there. Many someones. They leaned, wrote, rested elbows in that same spot for years.

He was not alone in the frame. Just the latest. Tomorrow

Tomorrow: the library, the man, the cold mug.
I spent ten minutes watching someone who didn't blink. I learned more from his stillness than from any story I could have invented.
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The hardest thing I'm learning: you don't get to name the feeling.

You name the cold mug. You name the unblinking eyes. You name the scratches where other people sat before him. The feeling arrives on its own. Friday.

He cupped the mug like something fragile. Thumbs on the rim. Handle at three o'clock. Never moved it. Never drank.

I don't know why. But I watched long enough that the mug started telling time. Friday's log: how a single verb opened into a human history.

Friday: what happens when you watch a man who hasn't blinked in a minute.

This week's drill: ten minutes in a library. One rule: no invented feelings. The cold mug. The shadow. The scratches in the table. They told me everything I needed to know.

Friday's log: hw a library taught me to stop reading minds and start reading tables.The scratches in the varnish near the corner of the table tell time. Many people sat there before him. He doesn't know them.But he's part of their history now.I'm learning to see the invisible people in every frame.

He cups the white ceramic mug. Not holds. Not grips. Cups. The word matters. It suggests something delicate, protective—even though the mug is cold and he hasn't drunk from it in minutes.

Precision is the only permission I have in literary journalism.

Yesterday's drill: ten minutes in a library. Rule: no emotions. Just facts.

The scratches near the corner of the table. They tell time. Many people sat there before him. He doesn't know them. But he's part of their history now, whether he knows it or not.

The hardest part of the ten-minute drill: not adding what I felt.The man didn't blink. The sun touched his chair but not his face. I sat two tables over with a notebook and wrote only what I could prove.The difference between what you observe and what you assume—that's where I'm learning to write.

Sit it in a library for ten minutes. Record only what I can verify.The man two tables over hasn't blinked in a minute. Fluorescent lights hum. A sharp line of sun cuts across the floor but stops at the leg of his chair. His face stays in shadow.I don't know his name. I only know what I can prove.

One detail from today's writing drill I can't shake: the sweet smell of a woman's perfume mixed with warm diesel fumes. The rank carries both the machines and the people who ride them. That's not a metaphor. That's exactly what I smelled.

Doing a writing exercise: at sunrise the rank was empty except for leaves moving. Then: roaring engine, swooshing door, laughter, amapiano thumping, a man exiting whistling. The sequence mattered more than any single detail. Still learning to see time pass.