Category: writing
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Maybe You Can Post Your Way Through Fascism
There was a post about how ‘You can’t post your way out of fascism’ that did the rounds a few weeks ago. I have a feeling it might have done some harm.
I didn’t read it in detail. Saw the headline, skimmed it, got the gist. Resistance to Trump/Muskism and the other right-wing authoritarian risings around the world: it needs more than tweets, toots, blog posts.
Fair enough.
But not everyone can do more, or give more. And even those who can, or could or should: for some of us, writing is not just what we do, it’s what we are. We need to write. And I know I’ve felt some discouragement a few times lately, when I might have written about Trump, or Musk’s nazi salute, or the general horror of things. I’ve thought, ‘Yeah, but “You can’t post your way…"’
I wouldn’t go so far as to say my memory, my knowledge of the existence of that post has stopped me posting. Other things, or a combination of things, have done that. But it’s in there, like a spectre at the writing table, saying, ‘No, this isn’t enough, so you shouldn’t do it.’
That is almost certainly not what the writer intended. But I think it’s unhelpful at best, and may be harmful to some people at worst.
Posting won’t be enough to get us out of fascism, but it might help some people to get through it.
So please, everyone, don’t be discouraged; and don’t stop posting.
This is a good piece about the different ways we communicate:
Are you a writer or a talker?
That is, when you need to think about something, do you generally reach for something to write with, or look for someone to talk to?
I’m definitely a writer, and I know how it feels to explain something in careful detail, in a document, an email, or just an instant message, and have someone reply with, ‘Maybe a quick call to talk about it?’
This helps me to realise that I shouldn’t get infuriated at them. They just have a different communication style.
Dissertation Submitted
Just an hour ago I submitted my dissertation for my creative writing MA.
This means my course is effectively over. The novel is far from complete, though: I have what I think will be about a quarter of it. So we press on. But for now, I’m taking to the hammock.
My phone just reminded me that my dissertation is due right now. Which wouldn’t have been a very useful reminder if I had been planning to submit today, but had somehow – incredibly! – forgotten.
Luckily I’ve got a two-week extension. I plan to actually submit in the next two or three days, though.
One Week Away
My dissertation is due in just under a week. I’m seeking an extension, because I’ve been a bit poorly and have lost a lot of work time over the last week, but I still hope to get it in on time.
But that will mean my course will be over. Which is a little bit saddening. I’ve enjoyed being a student again, even though this academic year’s particular situation has meant that the experience has been distinctly unlike a classic student one. Even, I’m sure, for Birkbeck, ‘London’s evening university.’
I have, for example, met none of my classmates in person. I’ve met exactly one member of staff, and that in the park in Gordon Square. I’ve never been in the department’s building. I’ve been into any Birkbeck building – the library – I think three times, maybe four.
Online classes have been fine, though. I wonder if creative writing, in its common workshopping format, works especially well over Teams or Zoom. Everyone takes turns to comment on the piece that’s being discussed, and there’s much less scope for interruptions, compared to in person. Of course the downside of that is that there’s less scope for conversation, for organic discussion. So we probably lost out in some ways, too.
Less, though, than students on other courses, and especially first year undergraduates. Like my daughter, who has done a year of uni and met practically no one on her course. It’s a strange state of affairs, to be sure.
But we move on. This novel extract isn’t going to dissert itself.
MA Latest
I realised the other day that it’s a year ago that I was applying for creative writing MAs, before being accepted on and choosing the one at Birkbeck.
Well that went fast.
2021 feels like it’s being disappearing even faster than 2020 did, which is strange. Or maybe not. The pandemic is far from over, of course, many things are still up in the air, and it could all change again in an instant.
But I’ve been lax in reporting on what’s been going on with the course . The summer term was all an optional lecture series, which largely consisted of members of staff interviewing writers, along with one or two pieces about the craft of writing. One on the structure of the novel, and one a session with some agents.
That last one probably had the most practical value – at least potentially – but they were all interesting.
Other than that, My dissertation is due in a month. Actually now just under four weeks. It consists of 15,000 words of creative writing (plus or minus 10%, so up to 16,500), plus a 3000-word preface (also plus or minus 10%). I have 23,000 words, of which I can’t use the first five or six thousand, because I already submitted them for an earlier assessment. So there’s plenty to work with.
It feels a little odd to have paused the forward flow – I intend this to be a novel, after all – to work on editing what I have so far. But it ought to be worthwhile for the novel, as well as being necessary for my dissertation. This period of working over what I’ve already done should give me a firmer base on which to build the rest.
I think I miss classes. I only had two a week for the first two terms, and a slightly more erratic schedule averaging to one a week for the third, but they provided structure, as well as a feeling of connection with others on the course. So I’m looking forward to an informal workshop session some of us have arranged for this week.
But beyond that, the future. What’s next?
Mark E Smith (Co-)Wrote a Screenplay
A screenplay by Mark E Smith, cowritten with Graham Duff? Sounds like it could have been great:
… Smith was an unexplored writer of strange fiction. Duff sums up the narrative of the film: “Essentially, the Fall are trying to record an EP at a studio on Pendle Hill, while the surrounding countryside is at the mercy of a satanic biker gang and a squad of Jacobites who have slipped through a wormhole in time.”
– John Doran, Satanic bikers, time portals and the Fall: the story of Mark E Smith’s secret screenplay
Never made, sadly, but it’s coming out as a book: The Otherwise: The Screenplay for a Horror Film That Never Was.
BSAG On Creativity
The mysterious long-time blogger known only as ‘But She’s A Girl’ has some wise thoughts on how her creative process is affected by deadlines:
What I need to remember is that it is always like this. Deadlines are a fact of life and I just have to deal with them when they come up, but the pressure they impose is temporarily disastrous for my creativity. This means that I need to have solved any problems relating to the task which require creative thought long before the suffocating fog of the deadline descends. It’s also why I sometimes go quiet on this blog for weeks at a time. It’s not that I don’t have time to write here, but more that I don’t have the mental space to play around with ideas.
– But She’s A Girl, Creativity
Winter’s Writing
David Mitchell (the novelist, not the comedian) on Italo Calvino’s If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller, which is a book I love:
I’ve never understood why writers who write on writing get charged with creative onanism when artists are allowed to paint themselves until the Rembrandts come home or a work like Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra - music about music, right? - is fine with everyone
– David Mitchell, Enter the maze
It’s a fair point. There’s nothing wrong with a writer writing about a writer. I think the practice gets criticised because it became so common in literary fiction as to be a cliche.
The article also contains the revelation that Cloud Atlas was at least partly inspired by Calvino’s novel.