‘Life of the mind’

The other week I was teaching a class that was based roughly on an article I wrote for Dirt, about how fashion and the internet have changed each other over the past ten years. Much of that article was about my nostalgia for the fashion blog pre-monetisation, its comparative purity. After all, that was the format that first enabled me to write for an audience a million years ago.

Retreading the article made me think, if it was so great then why don’t I do it myself? Not a fashion blog, obviously, but a place to write for no reason, not for profit nor for clout, just for its own sake, on the internet. Because the truth is that since my own book came out last year, I’ve felt confused about what my writing is ‘for’. In recent months I have turned down (or I suppose I’ve let pass) many opportunities to write for interesting publications and editors on worthwhile topics (or even tougher, “whatever you’d like to write about”) and honestly, have been feeling sort of stupid. Maybe not stupid, but brainless, by which I mean I found I was struggling sometimes to “get to the end of the thought” every time I had what seemed to be a decent thought, or the kernel of an idea. I pinned this on the mental and emotional ruckus of moving country, so when people I met asked me what I was working on now, was there another book coming, I could throw my hands up a little and say, Look, I’m very tired, I have no idea.

Writing for its own sake, somehow, had gotten lost in all that ruckus of publishing a book and uprooting a life. It’s foolish to assume you can make these big changes to your life and remain the same underneath it all. Everything changes all the time, and like the ship of Theseus I sometimes am not fully aware what exactly is the sameness that might endure throughout these changes. In response to this new feeling of brainlessness I found myself writing more and more in the Notes app of my phone, about what I was reading or seeing.

Now I want to write in a way that is, as I said, for its own sake. But what does that mean? Everything is a building block, isn’t it? Throughout my career I’ve often been content to write for peanuts when the commission was interesting or when it allowed me to get into a room I wouldn’t otherwise have been in. Sometimes things I write will lead over time to something more profitable, or sometimes the work’s existence will make someone else want to invite me to a party (why not?). Writing for an audience does have a funny way of doing this. You put it out there and it takes on a life of its own, existing more for the reader than for you. The Dirt article, for instance, led to me teaching a class based on the Dirt article, which is a fun new experience and also quite nice for my ego. And I’m not saying no to the prospect of profit or parties now, either, obviously, who wouldn’t want to profit from their work?

But that’s not what this is for. Maybe here I can try this other thing out: writing in public as a kind of mental exercise. When Karl moved here last autumn we went to see Sally Rooney talking about Ulysses at the Abbey and on the way home he expressed an idea he was having about Dublin, that compared to London you could engage with culture and the arts here in this more direct way, that felt more ‘Life of the mind’ than ‘Saw an ad for a Guardian masterclass and paid the fee and signed up’. Something to do with government funding for the arts combined with the city’s size. I liked the ‘Life of the mind’ quality to the extent that when I moved here I wrote it on a card and stuck it to the pinboard in my room where I used to plot stories, back when I had a desk. Life of the mind, I remind myself when work is difficult, meaning: there is more available to me here than grinding it out for a day rate or trying to buy a derelict house. (Life of the pint, I have also grumbled internally while cycling home from too many drinks with friends in Neary’s or Chaplin’s.)

So yes, maybe this blog does have a purpose. It’s to remind myself of this, to keep something cooking for myself on the furthest ring back on the hob. Not for profit or to boost my profile, though if you want to read this I obviously won’t stop you. But anyway, no goals, no desires for kudos or clout here, just vibes. Next week I’ll post something here about nuance and about a few things I saw in London last weekend