Liberation: Writing

Whenever anyone has asked me about my artistic outlet, I would always respond by saying I would like to be artistic but I am not. In my head though, I would also think that my artistic outlet is writing. I could never say it though, because I either wasn't writing, wasn't very good at it but most importantly I didn't really enjoy it. That has changed though.

Growing up, I battled with this, although only now I can see this. I didn't grow up in a household full of books. I had to force myself to read as a young adult. It wasn't that I struggled to read at al, but rather I had to struggle to enjoy it and choose to do it. The situation now is very different, I am running out of space in my own home to house all the books I own. Reading let alone writing, just wasn't ever something that I saw as a recreational activity. 

In fact a few years ago, I walked into a room incredibly surprised to join a conversation with my partner, who I know to be an avid reader and my mother, discussing different fiction authors. I had never known my mother to be a reader at all all throughout my childhood. 

The only time I wrote anything was at school, Whilst I excelled academically, English was the one area in which I did struggle. I wasn't bad, but neither was I great, like I was in other areas. Consequently the school environment was so off putting when it came to writing at all. This isn't a unique story of course, so many people later fall in love with things they hated at school but what happened in my adulthood sealed this fate of my interest in writing.

At the age of 17 I joined a Trotskyist organisation at the height of the anti-war movement around the time of the invasion of Iraq. Whilst I agree with much of the politics involved still to this day, there is so much I don't. 

One of the very subtle things I have come to realise has been the constraints placed on any form of expression, the writing i did at this time was always formulaic, devoid of any personality and always had to end with concrete proposals. Years later I started this very blog, but still entwined in that world, I have come to realise that I still adhered to that unwritten style guide all throughout. 

I began to view writing as something only done to make a coherent point, style, form or enjoyment were irrelevant sometimes even undesirable, it was monotone at best. Even when writing in other spheres, in academia; I took the same approach, when I very occasionally wrote something non-political I took that same approach.

I forced myself to write, that is why this blog was created. I thought I could replicate what I had with reading, I forced myself to read until I enjoyed it, I could force myself to write until I enjoyed it, but it never happened. I was overlooking the obvious, Whenever I read something I didn't enjoy, I could simply read something else that I did, and that made it easier to read everything. When I wrote though, I always wrote in the same benign way, I could never force myself to enjoy writing, I was the problem.

It is easy to say this all with the benefit of hindsight, it was impossible to see it at the time, but recently I have begun to write again, this time free of the shackles of a vanguardist political organisation, or even the perceived shackles, where self censorship is to the fore, I, for the first time ever, after multiple attempts, I finally enjoy writing.

Not only am I beginning to enjoy the process of writing, time is now my only constraint, I have only written a few pieces so far, but my mind has already planned out another 10 or so pieces, some completely different than anything I have written before.

I have an artist friend who would adamantly believe that everyone has an artistic outlook, and that art is part and parcel of everyday life, I guess its finally time to admit he has a point. Next time I am asked the question "What is your artistic outlet" I can now give an answer. I plan to continue writing, I have no idea if it serves a purpose, I have no idea if its any good or if many people will read it, but I guess that isn't the point, the writing has been liberated I finally enjoy it.

Anyone who has ever been inside a revolutionary vanguardist party and come out the other side, will talk about how much it would from them, often in terms of time and money, but in this instance, I think it shows it takes more from us than we sometimes realise, it controls the very way you think, not be force or coercion, its fully accepted and embraced, but it could a part of  who I could have been.  

Back, but not like before

I guess the two things go hand in hand. I originally started the blog as I returned to higher education, not because of this but the two projects seemed to go together perfectly.

I am no back and coincidentally have also returned to higher education.

The two things are certainly coincidental, there is of course an overlap in the thought process. A blog of the nature this has been, based primarily on politics in some form or another has a particular overlap if someone (myself) has been studying social science of some variety at the same time. I think though the coicidence is more about my mindset and the willingness to write.

This blog has laid dormant for some time now. My last blog post was over 5 years ago, and that was a one off. Prior to that it had been approaching a decade since regular blogging. Incidentally I no longer think I agree with the content of my last post. However I have chosen to leave it as it certainly was what I thought at the time. Perhaps in the future I will write a reply on the same subject outlining what I now think.

So going forward what will this blog be, at times the blog was good. There are some widely read and engaging articles for the correct reasons, there were also some widely read for the wrong reasons. The blog despite the time and effort I had put into suffered for several reasons which I will attempt to address going forward.

Firstly there was a lack of seriousness, not that a blog, without advertisement, and therefore an unpaid endeavor produced as a hobby rather than any other reason should be taken seriously. What I mean by this is that the content was not taken seriously, or rather the quality of the content was not. It was a serious case of quantity over quality. I felt that the way to be a successful blogger was to pump out content. I felt the need to create a post daily. I have no idea why, some of the bloggers I followed did, but even some of the most regular were only posting 2-3 times a week. This meant the quality suffered and also keeping up the regularity became a chore rather than enjoyable. 

That was not the only problem, the blog also suffered from the arrogance and bravado I held in youth, there was present in many a post and was further exacerbated but the drive to churn out articles. 

I was also obsessed with getting hits, I spent more time promoting the posts than actually writing them. Don't get me wrong. I of course want people to read it  no one puts their writings online if they have no interest in being read widely. This time around whilst I still want the hits. I want it to be more organic than before. Initially I have no plans to link blog posts anywhere on social media  instead will focus on writing and publishing and for the blog to regain an Identity at first.

So what is the blogs new identity. In short, at this stage I do not fully know. Previously, despite the flaws, significant as they were the blog had a very clear identity of politics and sociology. It certainly will contain this, but I also feel there will be other subjects covered which have not been previously. I have several ideas for topics to blog about. I won't list them now as it would feel like a commitment to write which I do not want to make.

That brings me on to the other big change which I think would reverse the trend. That being quality over quantity. I plan have no plans to set myself any kind of limit of minimum blog posts and instead simply having a mindset that I will  post regularly (whatever regularly becomes to mean. In fact initially and perhaps for some time. I will limit myself to publishing one article per week. I would only deviate from this for two reasons, either by creating a backlog of unpublished articles or if something I had written was particularly useful at the time of writing. As time goes on this pattern could change. The crucial thing is there will be no unrealistic timetable for publication. This will be done deliberately so that there is so pre-determined regularity without the need to force articles.

Although, as I have stated the articles will have a more serious character, it does not mean that every article will be some masterpiece or a fully worked out essay, there will be some essay or at least essay style posts, but by serious, I simply mean that the post will be more thought out, rather than rushed out.

The next few articles which will be published over the coming weeks have already been written at varying times over the last year, but as I have not been blogging never made it here before.

To future blogging.