Writing + Attention

On Being a Writer Chapter 5: Write

I’m reading through On Being a Writer by Ann Kroeker and Charity Singleton Craig this summer. Last week I came across this familiar quote from Simone Weil.

Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.

It makes the rounds occasionally; people lament their cell phone use and diminishing attention. But it always rubs me the wrong way. Something about the use of the words “absolutely unmixed.” It makes attention too fine a thing for us mortals.

It almost seems as if my scattered attention is the closest thing to prayer. The booklist scribbled on the back of an envelope, the desk stacked with poem drafts + journals, the boiling over pot of beans, the laundry waiting to be moved.

June Lake with Mammoth Mountain in the background

And then, as if in answer, this quote from L.M. Sacasas surfaced.

Enchantment is just the measure of the quality of our attention.

Ah. Maybe I’m selling my attention short!

At the beginning of June I participated in a Revision Station with Lauren Winner. She directly ties attention to writing.

Revision is, at its core, about paying attention.
Paying attention to what you have written, paying attention to yourself as a writer.
The circumstances, the material, the situation.

Horseshoe Lake on Mammoth Mountain

Then Mary Oliver throws open “the doorway / into thanks.”

Praying

It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

— Mary Oliver, Thirst

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Attention, prayer, enchantment, revision, gratitude.

How do these qualities come to play in your writing?

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