-this blog, again. But different.
Hello you. Been a while, hasn’t it? But lots of things have been happening, just not on here. I’ve been hermit-writing, and the words are improving, to the point where I’ve been sending stuff out with a hope it might get picked up. But I’ve also left Salad Onionsa bit fallow, and I regret that for three reasons. A three-point experiential argument has closed in on me in the last week such that the only choice is to bring SO back, focused on those three things. I thought you might like to know why, so you’d know what to expect - and whether to bother reading.
It occurs to me that there are three reasons for the artist’s blog.
1) An audience. At the ’Future Of The Book’ talk at Birkbeck Arts Week on Tuesday, Dan Kieran from Unbound (check it out, it’s exciting) reflected that while he’d written ten well-received books (including the sublime Crap Towns), he had no way of recontacting his audience, leaving him perpetually book-to-book and at the mercy of his publisher. Contrast that with the (let’s say) ‘non-mainstream’ standup model, where if you can build an audience of about 2000 who will come and see your new thing every year, you have created yourself a livelihood. So yes, there’s cynical value in cultivating a group of people for your work.
2) The practice. Some talk of 'morning pages’, short story sage Adam Marek of writing from 6-8 before his brain is awake enough to critique, but we all know one thing: there’s value in the little-and-often, and there’s value in reflection (okay, that’s two things). But opening up your studio is a celebration of the way you work, an acknowledgement that it has value, and an exhortation to keep on keeping on.
3) The scenius. I started reading the excellent Show Your Work! by Austin Kleon (ahh, you say, and now it makes sense), and it talk about many excellent things but one is the social nature of art. There’s certainly a lot of early-morning solitude (no bad thing), but it’s also an act of communication, no? Between creator and consumer, sure, but also between consumers ('the marketplace’) and at its best, creators. Because we can all learn, we can all have a laugh, and we can all push each other on. The best thing I’ve got out of studying at Birkbeck so far is my own little scenius - a little collection of writers I have very little in common with either personally or artistically (we all want to make very different things). But that’s the beauty of it - I’ve learnt from techniques I’d never have considered, and I’ve had to face up to my own reliance on high-concepts. If my clever idea doesn’t have humanity, it doesn’t wash with this lot. Even now that our short story module’s ended, we still meet up. Next time, we’ll be looking at novel excerpts. I don’t know what’ll happen, but I do know the scenius can make us all better.
We’re edging into tl;dr territory here, but before you go, here’s what this means for Salad Onions 2.0. It’s going to be:
-new writing
-new writing about writing/creative process
-a bit of stuff about Creature/advertising life, but only when it’s pertinent
-anything you specifically want to know
…and that’s it. No vanity stuff, not what I ate at this one fusion restaurant, no Ten GIFs You Must See Before You Die, no nonsense. Some will be rough, but I promise it’ll be good. And as regular as I can make it.
That’s all for now. But get me @jamescmitchell if you have any comments. Have I missed out a big thing? Probably, right?
After all,everything is a draft.
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