It may or may not be related to the fact that I’ve just turned 73 that I’ve found myself more often reflecting – or introspecting – on what it is I do when I write. I think fatigue has something to do with it. I tend to write in bursts, most notably in cafes on Wednesday afternoon (some 5-6 hours) and in my local pub, the King William IV, one or two evenings a week (maybe 2-3 hours); I also write in my study on and off (perhaps another 2-3 hours). I now seem to need more recovery time between bouts of writing.
I have always been quite clear in my own mind that I will continue writing – books, occasional chapters (though I ought to cut down on those), journal articles and blogs – for as long as I can maintain a reasonable standard and have something new or different to say. I continue to struggle, as I suspect others do, with repeating myself in the sense that I feel I cannot assume people have read my previous publications and so often start new manuscripts with brief summaries. However, old-timers who go on too long tend not only to repeat themselves, but to fall back on somewhat imperious overviews of their own specialist literatures. Sasha Scambler has been briefed to tell me when to stop!
I also find there is something like a formula that I have been unconsciously following: think – read – think – write. In other words, thinking, reading and writing have long been intimately connected and have become part of my way of living. My reading of non-fiction in particular, cavalier and unrestrained as it has always been, has been undertaken largely under the assumption that it will at some stage fuel my writing. To be fair, it often has. According the perverse logic of this formula, if I cease to write it will throw thinking and reading – that is, my life – into a state of some confusion. In any event, what would I do with myself?
All this has the greater resonance given my propensity to think and write in what amounts to solitary confinement. It’s not of course that I don’t learn from others, as we all do, but rather that I have typically taken myself off with my books and laptop on my own, true to my background as a shy only child, to peruse and write in seclusion. I’m the unsociable one absorbed in such tasks sitting in the corner of the café or pub, all but oblivious of my surroundings.
So what I’m faced with is a dawning recognition that a central theme of my being on this planet may lose plausibility as the years roll by. I’m ok at the moment, if more tired by the creative processes than hitherto. The encouragement of others has grown gradually more salient. Sasha remains resolutely positive. And just today Miranda, up to her ears as a public health practitioner coping with Tory ineptitude, has affirmed that there remains much to be said publicly about the mishandling of the pandemic (not to mention the corruption involved). Miranda, along with Benny Goodman, were my co-authors on a recent paper on muckraking sociology and COVID that we opted not to dilute further just to satisfy reviewers and instead made available as an offprint: we are all pleased to see that it already has 300+ downloads. Colleagues on social media also keep me going.
I am at the time of writing this working on my book ‘A Critical Realist Theory of Sport’, which is a third-to-a-half done, am awaiting reviewers’ comments on a paper for ‘Frontiers in Sociology’; and am about to embark on a new paper on stigma with Italian sociologist Alice Scavarda. All this is good, but I feel I must proceed with more caution from now on, be more selective in my undertakings.
I blogged recently on metrics, recording both their inadequacy as indicators of what I have/have not accomplished, and my lack of what we might call ‘productivity’ compared with both other babyboomer academics and the next generation. While I was productive compared to many of those who taught me, I am clearly not when compared to many peers and most successors. Even setting aside qualms about measuring productivity, I imagine my own metrics reflect my preference for sole authored work and writing in the corners of cafes and pubs. It’s a way of life that seems to be passing us by: multi-authored publications by research teams are perhaps becoming the norm. I’m glad I’m retired when I did.
Ever onwards and upwards (for the time being).