When I first started blogging on Theatre Ideas in 2005, I was responding to a book that had been recommended to me whose title I have long forgotten but that had urged that academics write at least 15 minutes a day every day, which seemed like a good idea to me. I was seven years into my teaching career, had heaved a sigh of relief when I got tenure, and I was not interested in writing for academic journals. I had also read educator Will Richardson’s Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms which had recently come out. So I decided to blog at least 15 minutes a day. I ended up blogging much more than that. For seven years.
However, like all academics, especially at an undergraduate liberal arts university like mine that put an emphasis on teaching, I didn’t have a lot of time to write – I was teaching a lot of classes, many of them new preps, directing a play one semester a year, and serving on way too many committees. Nevertheless, I had lots of ideas in my head that I wanted to share. Very often, these ideas were reactive – responses to something someone else had written (“honey, I’ll be late for dinner, there’s someone who’s wrong on the internet”) or something I had read in a book that inspired me in some way. I’d sit down at my office desk with two hours available between my class and a committee meeting, have lunch and knock out something just to get the idea out of my head. Often, these posts (we called them posts back then, not “content”) were quite lengthy, sometimes as long as 2,500 words or more. I didn’t have time to research anything that couldn’t be pulled off of my office bookshelf, nor did I have time to edit and rewrite – I did both as I went.
When I look back at that writing today, I confess that I’m surprised at how well it stands up. Of course, I had my share of kneejerk clinkers, but much of what I wrote had energy, some degree of wit, a firm philosophical foundation, and at least some glimmer of insight. Plus they were kind of fun to read. At least to me.
Today when I write here on MB, things are different. Things are much more polite – to disagree with someone, which back then was de rigueur (“Whatever It Is, I’m Against It” was my blogging motto), is now almost unheard of – after all, that’s what X is for! But here, when there are comments, they are mostly of the “attaboy” type. I sort of miss the Intellectual give and take, although the out-and-out brawls got a little tiresome after a while. Sometimes, people took issue with what I wrote – can you believe it?
More importantly, now that I am not writing in response to an ongoing conversation (or battle), and my audience is minimal to say the least, I can take my time to think, research, edit, polish. At first, this was disorienting. I had a hard time recreating the propulsive, slashing style that once set me apart; I’d find my ideas would sort of droop onto the page and lie there, moping and mumbling. That wasn’t fun at all, I’d think, it’s got all the excitement of a bowling ball rolling slowly down the basement stairs. On the other hand, I was still being driven by a sense that I needed to provide a regular stream of, yes, “content” unless I wanted to be forgotten – not admitting that I had been forgotten for a long time now. It took a while but I finally realized that I was OK with that – that I really didn’t want to be part of an online controversy about anything anymore. Maybe that comes of being 68 – I don’t know.
What I’m finally starting to enjoy is just taking my time to let my ideas develop, to edit and polish, to publish only when I think I’ve said what I meant. I mean, this particular post is being written casually, but I have another one that I’m really working on – something apparently called an “effort post” these days, and it is an effort – a slow effort, but an effort nonetheless. A leisurely effort. It’s more like whittling than factory work. And because I have this time, I’m not giving my writing to a chatbot to correct the grammar or make suggestions for how to spice things up a little – I’m going to just do that myself, because that’s part of the fun. It’s like enthusiastic gardeners who even like weeding.
Kids, don’t try this at home – I’m a retired professional, and if you are hoping to generate income through your writing, you will starve taking my approach. You absolutely need to keep your intellectual knee jerking away non-stop, and I hope yout feelings won’t be hurt if I don’t read you. And in exchange, I won’t be hurt of you don’t read me. Deal?
Anyway, sometime in the not-too-distant future, I’ll be publishing something about Paul Kingsnorth’s Against the Machine. But not until I’m damn good and ready.