This is part of an on-going workshop about building your writing craft 15 minutes at time. Previous posts can be found on the right under the category heading "the enchanted 15"
Courage is not the absence of despair; it is, rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair. --Rollo May, The Courage to Create
Week 2 Assignment: Mark our your writing space
Last week we talked about TIME. This week we are going to talk about SPACE.
Today we are going to talk about:
*the importance of objects and space
*the enchantment of our enviornment through belief
*the courage to create
You need a space--a place that you return to day in and day out to do your writing. The space doesn't have to be dedicated. In fact, all you really need are objects to establish your space. You enchant your writing space with objects, order, and beauty.
In acting we use something called endowment. An object on stage is considered endowed if the director and actor have decided to give the object metaphysical weight. (Meta=beyond, physic=the material world.) How does an object become endowed? It's simple. The actor simply chooses to believe it is. Then he must react differently to that object. If there is a glass of water on stage that is one thing. But if the actor begins to treat that glass of water as quenching a deeper thirst, or as the only means of survival, or as the weapon he will use to esacpe imprisonment, that object will become endowed with a higher stakes reality than its basic phyiscal utility. If the actor emotionally invests in that on stage object, the audience will also begin to invest belief and emotion in that object and it transforms the object from something every day into something more. It will become irradiated. It will throw off heat.
So the object becomes endowed through belief. Which is really just another word for enchantment.
If you don't have a dedicated space, choose one (or several) endowed objects that, once placed on your kitchen table or what have you, will concecrate the space as your writing space. I know a writer who uses a framed picture of St. Francis de Sales. I know another who has a rock. Another writer has a particular coffee mug. Try to go for maximal beauty.
If you are lucky enough to have a dedicated space, your space and the objects in them will be there waiting for you every time you are ready to set your timer.
My belief in the power of endowment is a part of my Catholic Imagination. You see, we come from a world in which objects, images, and elements are enchanted. Water and flame. Palms and ash. Votive candles. Icons. All of these in a Catholic context, are imbued with metaphysical weight. Grand significance.
And performative power. Holy Water blesses us and blesses objects. Votive candles send a prayer to heaven and mark the place of our desire and intention for others to see. When you enter a Church and see a tabernacle, you are in the place of something Other. When you smell the whiff of incense, something has changed. Reality has altered. The metaphysical and the physical are in union.
Think of your writing space as something Other. Mark it off. You can use music, too, to create sonic space (I'm addicted to using movie soundtracks). Though be careful of music with lyrics or the wrong mood for what you are trying to write.
Is this magical, superstitious thinking? Absofrigginlutely it is. That's the point. You are struggling against great resistance in order to write, in order to produce, in order to create. I mean think about it: how many people say there is something they'd like to write but fail to do it? They'll say they don't have the time. But that's not it. As you will soon see you don't necessarily need a whole lot of time.
They don't have the courage.
A failure to create is almost always a failure in courage.
So you see, writing is not an everday sort of thing, though it may become part of your routine, and even become a way to make some money and perform a service. But never forget the fortitude it takes to reveal yourself on page. Every word, every sentence tells, reveals. Extraordinary courage requires extraordinary objects. Objects with signifcance, grace, and beauty.
You could diagnose this as a reversion to childhood thinking. Obsessive-compulsive disorder is allegedly an example of being stuck in the age of magical thinking when we believe that what we do or don't do has a deep power to protect us from the realities of life. So in a way, what I'm suggestion is not only a regression, but a mind set which some see as pathological.
You know what, I'm okay with that, are you?
How's your 15 minutes going? Do you already have "enchanted" objects?
