On being in residency

by Bronwyn Lovell

On being in residency by Bronwyn Lovell

To be in residence at Varuna is to briefly embody another self – one without family, pets, or employment. It is to lay down one’s other roles for a short time, and to indulge fully in one’s identity as a writer. Places like Varuna facilitate more than just physical space for writing; they provide mental space as well: the shopping, cooking and cleaning are all taken care of, so all a resident need do is write. Residents retreat to their rooms and shut the door on the outside world. In this way, one can experience the romantic ideal of the artist’s garret, with all the seclusion but no chance of starvation. A traditional writing residency is a getaway: a respite from daily life and noise, an escape from responsibilities and chores, usually in a serene, green setting. A virtual writing residency is not a retreat: groceries still need buying, meals still need cooking, and the dogs keep on barking.

I have written more during a week at Varuna than I have in a year at home. But my visits to that wonderful place have been few and several years between. Admittedly, on another visit, I stayed longer and wrote less. Of course, there is more to writing than just producing words. Writing consists of much thinking, research, and planning. To measure one’s productivity by word count alone would be to overlook other processes integral to the craft. Downtime spent reading, napping and walking during a residency may likewise nurture the writing process. Rediscovering one’s creativity may be the most important aspect of any residency experience. Everyday life can leave us weary, and rest can reinvigorate the creative impulse that is so often suppressed by our abiding general busyness.

I signed up to a virtual residency because I was impressed by the access to international writers and publishers it offered. It also meant I could have a residency experience at a fraction of the expense and without the trouble of interstate travel and arranging care for my pets. However, at the outset of my virtual residency experience, I felt an overwhelming sense of despair. Despite my best efforts, the week was not clear of other commitments. My schedule was very full; the unruliness of life had not been stilled. I was on the cusp of commencing a new semester of teaching, and I had to prepare for my classes. I had recently adopted a rescue dog, who had failed to settle. I was in the midst of a precarious mortgage application, and, as usual, there were bills to be paid, errands to be run, and dishes piling up in the sink. When I logged in to my computer for the first of the week’s sessions, my dogs started a cacophonous chorus of howling in the background, and I felt ready to cry. I didn’t know how to properly participate in a residency program without being extricated from the bustle of everyday life. Soon enough, the tears came.

Most unexpectedly, there was something intensely emotional about my virtual residency experience. I hadn’t written in so long, which made me sad and frustrated, and I was tired. I felt vulnerable. I was talking to the virtual participants from the cat-hair covered couch in my loungeroom, with the mess of my life barely out of view of the camera. Unlike those people I might meet in a traditional residency, and perhaps speak to briefly while passing in the anonymity of the Varuna hallway or communal kitchen, I was inviting these people into my own home, rather than leaving my home behind. One might expect that, since myself and the other participants were all physically distanced from each other, that there would have been an increased sense of social distance as well. The opposite was true. Like a traditional residency experience, we were each in our own rooms, but unlike a traditional residency, the computer screen provided a window between us. Technology facilitated an intimate human connection. We looked into each other’s spaces: we saw the pictures on the wall, the books on the shelf, the quality of the light, and the colour of the bricks. We glimpsed not just the writer, but gained some insight into the whole person and the larger life they lived. This was true of the guest presenters as well. When Mark Doty spoke to us about poetry from his home in New York, his golden retriever competed with us for his attention. Mark was embarrassed by her vocal interjections and apologised. She had hip problems, he explained. He got up to get her a treat to gnaw on. This didn’t silence her. He finally turned to his elderly dog in exasperation and said, “You are just being impossible today!” At that moment, I had an epiphany: life has no reverence for literature. The world will not stop for poetry, even if you’re Mark Doty.

I didn’t write a tremendous number of words as the writer in residence of my living room, but creative productivity is difficult to measure. Just spending dedicated time each day with my project was huge progress, even if all I did was think about it. By the end of the week, I had several new stanzas of a long poem, and that was much more than I would normally achieve in a week with competing demands and deadlines. My virtual residency experience helped me appreciate that the casual chaos of living will always encroach on my time and energy as a writer. Life won’t turn down the volume or wait for me to find a pen; if I want to write, I must do so despite everything else that is going on. The virtual residency also helped me feel close to a handful of writers in different states, countries and time zones, and as a result I now feel a little less alone in the world as a creative. I know that there are writers and indeed all kinds of artists everywhere facing very similar struggles. While places like Varuna provide an incredible gift for writers, we can only ever visit, not stay. Very few of us have the privilege to take part in residencies often. Ultimately, facilitating physical and mental space for writing is something a writer needs to be able to do themselves. I am now trying harder to weave writing into my everyday life, rather than desperately seeking to escape my life in order to write.

Bronwyn Lovell