Consider this critic a cretin
Just resting on laurels completely invented
Word acrobatics performed with both harness and net
I'm so full of shit
Over the last fourteen posts I’ve outlined elements of my writing practice which contribute to my enjoyment of writing. Initially I imagined writing ten posts, whereas in the last few days I’ve rapidly realised I could potentially write hundreds. There’s no essential character to my writing practice but rather a style through which I approach it which manifests in a whole range of different ways. At the core of this style is a commitment to write for my own enjoyment which, in turn, contributes to writing being enjoyable. In this sense it’s not a complex issue and doesn’t merit lengthy analysis. The complexity arises in sustaining this commitment within a context in which my professional advancement, or lack thereof, depends more on the quality and quantity of my writing than any one single other factor.
It is inevitable that writing will at least sometimes feel pressured under these conditions. The solution I suggest is to avoid taking writing too seriously (“word acrobatics”) and to find ways to practice it which are consequence light (“performed with both harness and net”). I didn’t know where I was going with this series but it’s clear to me there’s something I want to say about digital scholarship and writing: the opportunities and challenges for enjoying writing in a platform university. In fact I’ve been trying to say it in a range of different settings for over a decade. In these word acrobatics performed with both harness and net, I have found the next major project I want to work on, which feels like it will make Social Media for Academics and Generative AI for Academics into a trilogy.
I’m going to stop writing this blog series now but I sincerely enjoyed working on it. It’s an example of how blogging replenishes and reorientates me, providing the foundation for the more professional modes of creative expression which my career necessitates. I’m also not ready to release Platform and Agency into the world yet, even after 16 years* and need something to occupy me until this changes 🤔
*If the project began from the start of my part-time PhD in 2008 which is sort of true, sort of not. In reality I guess it’s a combination of my PhD and The Distracted People of Digital Capitalism which I wrote from 2014-2017 before binning, before starting it again properly in 2022 after numerous false starts.
Mark Carrigan 