by Mary Rakow
I look at this image every day because it reminds me to focus–in my life, my work, in the kind of person I want to be. This particular image of this particular building in this particular location does this more than any other image I have.
Physical buildings can show us the non-physical. Can make visible the invisible.
And we need to be reminded of the invisible in our writing life. Because many actions we take to begin and sustain our writing lives are themselves invisible. Focusing ourselves, for example, is an invisible writerly act.
So I’ve decided this year, 2023, to write about architecture and the writing life. I’m laying out a series of 11 posts that you will make stronger just by reading them and also by your comments. In advance of that, thank you!
I’ve thought about architecture for a long time. It influenced me deeply as a child growing up in a variety of houses, and an at-times deeply violent family. Architecture can speak even to the very young. As writers, we know this. We know that being in or looking at a building can be a revolutionary moment in our writing life.
For you, this image may be terrifying, boring, too religious, or just too odd. That’s totally okay. You will find your own image, I hope. To me, it looks like the dwelling of a hermit, so intrigues me, enlivening feelings of joy and hope. But that’s not the point. It’s the focus of the place.
We all need this kind of focus in our writing life, even if we’re primarily raising children now or starting a company, fighting an illness or mourning a loved one. In the time that we carve out for writing, this is what we need. A sustained focus. This is true for mathematicians, visual artists, composers, dancers, anyone doing creative work. And we need reminders. So we each should find our reminders. And keep them handy. Keep them visible.
At the same time, this building isn’t just a reminder. It’s not just a sign. Not just one thing that points away from itself to another thing. It’s different than a billboard that says “Focus!” Or a sculpture of a huge arrow pointing to the sky.
This building is lived in. It was made to be lived in. And so in this way the building is like our writing process. The building reminds us that we must find ways to live within the focus we have chosen.
Let’s be practical for a moment: To focus we need to give up things. Maybe lots and lots of things. I certainly have done that. The person living in this building gives up comfort, proximity to the world, to stores, boulevards, buses. To movement in distant locations. To convenience. On and on. But why?
It’s not for some dreary self-sacrifice. Not to produce some miserly void, absent of everything loved. For the person living in this place, the absences allow a focus that is paradise.
The trick was to give up the right things. And to do that, we first need to figure out what the goal is that we want to focus on. Then to remove obstacles to that focus. To figure out what those things are in our writing life.
This building was designed to focus on a very few particular things. As writers, we must each do the same thing. To design our writing time in a way that supports what we want to produce, in the end.
As writers we also must design a building, in time and in space, that will let us inhabit our deepest aspirations in a sustained manner. A structure that will protect our sense of wonder. Will sharpen our curiosity. Will provide a sense of safety, a place to be brave. Will increase our ability to hear the words that want to come to us and abide there with us until, properly arranged, we release them to the world. It is as simple as that. We need to build a writing structure in time and in space that will give us the best chance to write the story that we alone can write. There is such a story. The story—whether novel, YA thriller, self-help guide, flash piece—that will never exist on planet Earth unless we write it.
This is what I mean by “focus.”
And if we do that, when we know our focus and, as a means to that end, have given up the right things, we feel the opposite of dreariness. We feel energy! Confidence! Peace! Joy!
Let us each start from where we are. Let us start now. Let us do what really matters.
Exercises:
- What is the focus of my writing life? What is my deepest writerly desire?
- Is there a building, rooftop, cave, a coastline that helps me remember this desire? Can I return to it? Can I keep a picture of it near me always, as a reminder?
- What are the right things for me to give up? An hour a sleep a night? Etc.
- Write a 500 word story, a flash piece, about a character living in this particular building. Place the story in a different century, either past or future.
Fun Links:
- For a glimpse of the Bay Area architecture scene, visit the AIA San Francisco website. Almost all events are open to non-members. I’ve enjoyed sessions with them. It’s fun to engage with people thinking about architectural projects and challenges. Here, for example, they’re asking for applicants for their design awards. https://aiasf.org/architecture/design-awards. Find the AIA chapter closest to where you live.
- When we write in response to visual art we create a connection that is real but is also invisible. Here’s a super short, totally gorgeous story by a reader of these blog posts. His story “Bison Paddock” was written in response to a painting on my website, “Sternenfall” by Anselm Kiefer. Just published in an online lit mag devoted to publishing fiction and poetry inspired by looking at art. Here’s the link. Enjoy!
https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-review/bison-paddock-by-eliot-li
In Closing:
If you’re coming to SFWC, sign up for a Free 8 Minute Edit. I’d love to see your work and get a sense of what you’re trying to build!
For information on how I edit, my editing philosophy, writing exercises, just lots of stuff please visit www.maryrakow.com.
Super thanks to all who send writers my way! It’s a great support to the eremitic life I am trying to build.
Good writing! And see you next time!
Mary
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A freelance editor living in the Bay Area, Mary Rakow, Ph.D. works with clients who are both local and global. She is both rigorous and encouraging, insightful and kind.
A theologian with graduate degrees from Harvard Divinity School and Boston College, Mary writes with deep feeling and a questioning faith. This Is Why I Came earned outstanding reviews in The Boston Globe, The Atlantic, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Commonweal, Christian Century, O Magazine, Ploughshares. It appeared on reading lists for courses at both Princeton and Yale.
Graduating magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from UC Riverside, inducted into Alpha Sigma Nu for her doctoral work, Rakow is a Lannan Foundation Literary Fellow. She received two Lannan residencies and two residencies at Whale & Star, in the studio of visual artist Enrique Martinez Celaya, where she wrote the first book-length treatment of his work, Martinez Celaya, Working Methods (2014).
Rakow’s debut novel, The Memory Room, received outstanding reviews and was shortlisted for the Stanford University International Saroyan Prize in Literature, a PEN USA/West Finalist in Fiction and was listed among the Best Books of the West by The Los Angeles Times.
Mary is a beloved editor and writing coach. She is constantly on the lookout for new writers, both those who are just starting out and those with publications and writing accolades.
I am not a “creative” writer per se. I am the author and designer of a web site (www.james-gillray.org) devoted to the 18th century artist, James Gillray– often described as the father of the political cartoon. But your comments about finding an image, or inhabiting a space, which enables you to focus on your work is as true for me as it is for you.
I am lucky enough to have a small room of my own, my study, where almost everywhere I look I see 18th century prints—copies by William Hogarth, by Thomas Rowlandson, by William Blake, and, most importantly two actual prints (not copies) by James Gillray given to me by a wonderful collector who is also a subscriber to my web site. When I’m in my study, I live in the 18th century. And especially when I look at the two Gillray prints right over my desk, I am reminded (even when my energy starts to flag) why I continue to write.