Hello out there?
I just wrote a chapter about copyright and authorship and how I think romantic authorship is mostly a myth perpetuated by films, record labels, and people with big egos. I subscribe more to the view that art and creativity is relational; we don’t create original things in isolation, we stand on shoulders and collaborate. That’s not the point of what I’m writing here but if that sounds like something that might butter your crumpet (trying to assimilate) I’m happy to share the draft. The reason that chapter made me want to write something finally on this weird website is that it was a ‘solo-authored’ piece. I’m pretty bad at writing on my own. I lack the discipline to hold myself to task, I second guess myself at least five times with every new sentence, and more than anything it’s just not as fun as working together with other people. Every time I sit down to write something I have to set aside extra time to stare at what I’ve written and tell myself “that’s just not good, hey…” That’s why I’m writing this now.
I want to do a bit of shitty writing for fun. This is exposure therapy.
I have been writing things and making them available for people to read professionally for a few years now but I’m still very hard on myself. I probably always will be. I think lots of my ‘professional’ writing is shitty but made less shitty due to a combination of factors like editors, peer reviews, and many, many cool and smart collaborators. I also think it’s kind of a good thing to view my writing as shitty. To again tie it to music, it means I’ll never stop trying to improve. There’s a point of diminishing returns where I need to reign it in a bit (saying I suck at writing on the first day of class teaching at a University won’t inspire much confidence among students), but being unsatisfied with my performance is what helped me go from being a shitty drummer and bass player to reasonably decent drummer and shitty bass player. The key is always practice. But that’s easier said than done.
I suck at practicing. I’ve been playing instruments for more than 20 years and could never get into a routine of practice. Don’t get me wrong, I loved nothing more than practicing by jamming with friends and bandmates, working with a mentor in different group and private lessons, and during actual performances. I just hated sitting in my dimly lit bedroom or a harshly lit practice room with a metronome and going over the same thing again and again. I know for a fact this is relatable among some musicians. I now have a sneaking suspicion it’s also true for some academics but for different reasons. If you don’t practice, practice, practice in music, you’ll never make it to Carnegie Hall. If you don’t practice in academia, you can still make it to our equivalent of Carnegie Hall (the Journal of Nature or Science I guess or a DECRA) as long as you are strategic and, even better, productive with your practicing.
The published writing I’ve done over the past few years is a good example of productive practicing. I got a bit better with each piece and each piece helped my ‘career’ in some way at the same time. Like many around me, I have been frustratingly indoctrinated by the capitalistic logics of Big Academia (TM). Anything and everything I’m writing needs to be work related. More than that, it needs to be building to something; a conference paper, a journal article, a book. It’s the same with reading. The only things I read are conference papers, journal articles, and books. That’s so boring! I mean lots of that stuff is interesting and it’s mostly well-written but it’s not fun. It’s functional. I do it because I have to and if I happen to enjoy it that’s just a bonus.
Fun is an apex motivator, particularly for someone like me who is a goofy adult with bigtime ADHD. Being silly, hyperactive, and unable to focus was a big problem for my performance in school throughout all of my childhood, adolescence and early adulthood. It didn’t matter because school wasn’t my main focus. I was more interested in playing music with friends because it was more fun. Now I find myself in the awkward position where going to school is my job. Against all odds and mounting evidence to the contrary, I do mostly find my work fun. Not all work and not always. Often as a result of doing things to make work more fun (like working with friends). I’m not just saying this as a desperate bid to overcome cognitive dissonance, I have decided I want to pursue this stressful, ridiculous, mental-health obliterating career path because because it can be fun and I enjoy it… sometimes.
Two years ago work was emphatically and demonstrably not fun. I burned out halfway through a big project and forced myself to keep going even though it was clearly the wrong and unhealthy thing to do. It was a writing project, a fun one, that I was doing together with a close friend, but it ended up being too much to handle. I have spoken about this openly in conversations with friends, colleagues, and on my public social media accounts. It was not a good time and I don’t want people (especially students and early career researchers) to get it twisted: the fact that I managed to be productive during and immediately after an incredibly intensive and exhausting PhD program might look good on a CV but absolutely should not be exhorted or put on a pedestal. I know that some people can do it, excel at what they’re doing, and keep things balanced. I learned the hard way that I’m not some people.
Controversially, I don’t want to keep burning out or perpetuating self-destructive habits; pretty hot take for a millennial. It took longer than it should have but I started going to therapy again last December (a huge privilege in its own right in lots of places around the world including here in the UK) and am now actually doing things to improve my mental health rather than thinking about doing things and telling my friends and loved ones that I ‘want to be’ or ‘should be’ doing things to get better. One of those things is looking for ways to make work more fun.
To that end, I’m now going to articulate the three reflections I had in mind when I decided to write this and then stop writing and go to sleep (you should too if you’re tired but first drink some water). I’m framing these as lessons I want to learn and incorporate in my own life, but doing so publicly in such a way that might be useful or relatable to others. Or maybe this is totally useless and I’m crazy. But hopefully it’s not. Let’s fight back against auto-gaslighting.
The first is learning how to write in my own voice again. This what you’re reading now is getting closer to that goal than most of what I’ve written in the past two years. I have fallen into the trap of writing like a ‘productive academic’ in multiple senses. Productive writing gets to the point, it doesn’t mess around with lots of adjectives and flourishes, it organizes things according to the rule of threes and signposts with ‘first, second, third’. It’s functional. But it’s not fun. When I started writing my master’s and PhD theses I tried writing in my own voice. Being silly, trying to be clever, and having fun with what I was doing. But in both instances, after countless meetings with supervisors and negative feedback on drafts, I stopped. They weren’t being harsh or unfair, they just wanted me to succeed. In the very tightly bounded world of obtaining a research degree, formulaic and functional writing wins over fun and flourish. Not always and I must acknowledge one member of my supervisor team who always enjoyed me to write in my own voice and ignore the haters. Big ups to her. Doing this kind of ‘practice writing’ is a good way for me to remember what my voice sounds like in written form, even if it’s a bit informal, rambling, and shitty.
Once I’ve tapped into my own voice, I want to learn to translate my thoughts into writing. This is something I think I do well in conversation, especially when it comes to thoughts about academic writing. In addition to having more fun working on teams with friends, I also really benefit from discussing whatever it is I’m working on with other people. I have whittled away precious hours of my friends and family members’ lives with semi-sensical ramblings about whatever project I’m working on. I appreciate that I have people in my life who are willing to listen to me, not everyone does, but I also recognize that it’s easier to justify long meandering conversations about work stuff with people who are also working on that stuff. I am a dialogic learner, no question at all. I need to talk things through with someone before I can express what the hell I’m talking about in other formats. When I’m working alone and my friends are screening my calls (with good reason), I struggle to think coherent thoughts and struggle even more to remember thoughts from moment to moment. A way around this, I’ve found, is to take notes. I take lots of notes because I’m forgetful and can type fairly quickly. As with my issues with productive practicing, this shouldn’t only be thoughts that have to do with work. In my case, I only do this when trying to write comedy. I’ve done stand up on and off for 15 years (and in that time I’ve become about as talented a comedian as I am a bassist) and funny ideas are always the first to go in my little notes app. What I’d like to learn is to translate thoughts to writing that don’t have to do with Mormons trying to approach me in the World of Warcraft.
If I do manage to translate my thoughts to writing, the third and final thing I want to learn to do is to finish writing a thought before moving on and forgetting. This is the big one. This is why I set up a blog on my weird website nearly six months ago, posted there was more coming to literally no one, and then forgot and left. It’s clear how difficult this one is for me because I’m getting to the end of this post and am reallllllllly losing steam. I am actively pushing myself to wrap this up and not leave it for another day because I will absolutely forget or reconsider and delete it. Finishing things in generally is tricky, but the worst thing about returning to a written-out thought fragment is staring at for a full minute and thinking “what the actual fuck was I on about?” In my personal view this one and the previous one are more closely linked to my attempts to manage my ADHD, but I think they’re applicable beyond that.
Even if I manage to write in my own voice and translate a complete thought, there’s the not-so-insignificant matter of the voice in my head screaming that what I’ve just written is shit. It’s absolute shit, what were you thinking, everyone else writes better than this and they also nail it on the first draft, no outside input or notes needed. That voice is convincing, loud, and lives in other people’s heads, not just mine. It’s also insane and irrational. A real buzzkill. That’s why I’m doing this right now instead of other forms of quote relaxation unquote. I’m trying to drown out the negative thoughts by doing some shitty writing for fun. Simple as that. There was another bit I wanted to include about how entertaining shitty writing can but let’s move this along so I get can get myself over the finish line.
I’m going to end it here and do two things that feel to me like sticking my hand in a box of spiders (and not the cute fuzzy jumping ones, the big venomous go-fuck-yourself ones). I’m not going proofread this. I’m sure there are mistakes, typos, half finished thoughts and other things that I’d want to change if I went back through this carefully or quick and sloppy. That’s not the point of this. The point is to be shitty and have fun.
I’m also going to post this on my Twitter. That’s to hold me accountable to myself because I’ve been here before. At the start of my PhD I tried doing the ‘academic blog’ thing using my band’s website. Even for people who knew the band name, it was pretty difficult to find that writing. That was on purpose. I didn’t have confidence in what I was writing. I was trying to sound like I knew what I was talking about, a cardinal sin among PhD students unfortunately, so I kept it hidden in the dark. And, unsurprisingly, I stopped doing it after about a month because there was no reason to keep going. Nobody was reading it. Not that I needed someone to read this but without that possibility it was just me making URL jokes to myself. I needed to put it out somewhere so people could see it, regardless of whether they actually would. I am not trying to inflate my self-importance thinking that anyone wants to read this or will get anything from reading this. Like I said at the start, this is exposure therapy. If you are seeing this right now, you have my genuine thanks for your time and interest.
The secret third thing I’m going to do is go to Unsplash and get some licensed images to spruce this post up a bit like a proper blog. I hope to do this again soon. I already have something in mind for the next one about improvisation and creativity provisionally titled ‘Attack of the 40 ft Jazz Bandits’. I’m putting that out there right now to will it into existence. Until then 😅
Music right now: EmOGs by Salaam Remi and Mumu Fresh
Game right now: Chained Echoes on Switch
Drink right now: Water
Where's Bondy? 