writing – Page 2 – Nick Grant

Nick Grant

Tag: writing

  • I’m Not Sure This is a Good Idea

    This is a story about hindsight…

    Disguise

    Imagine this: you’ve spent your whole life dreaming of becoming a published author, with a fucktonne of readers; perhaps being a bestselling author. Then, one day, you hit the jackpot: your books are flying off the shelves; you have a ton of readers around the world. Thousands of people read your writing every day. Millions read what you wrote every year. Are you happy? Are you content?

    What was your objective?

    Did you want to get paid for doing something you love? Did you want to convert your love of writing into a profession? Did you want approval; did you need for a publisher to tell you that what you wrote was good, before you’d believe it for yourself? Did you want fame and adulation? Did you need for the general public – en masse – to recognise your brilliance, by luxuriating in the delicious prose which decorates the pages of your books? You’ve got it now. Are you happy?

    Then.

    Suddenly you feel very exposed. Your psyche is exposed for all to see. Was it really worth it? With all the money in the world – the best paid author in the business – was it worth the effort, and the sacrifice? Was it worth it to be out there in the world, for everyone to judge?

    Now the academics will pore over your words, gaining so-called “insight” into things which never existed; imagining that there is more deep meaning in your writing than ever existed; creating layer-upon-layer of intellectual mastubatory wankstain bullshit, if you’re so lucky as to be considered a literary figure of great importance.

    You must remain enigmatic. Never explain yourself. Culture your eccentricities: this is your life now. You are creating a myth; a legend. You have to maintain a certain image, if you want to achieve a cult following, and to be somewhat immortalised, insofar as making your way onto the undergrad reading list of an English degree at a substandard academic institution; well-thumbed copies of your book being kept on the shelves of every pretentious student in the land.

    Still, is it worth it? Is this what you wanted?

    Still, you have to ask yourself, why did you embark upon this fool’s errand? Why did you start writing in the first place? What was the point? When will you be satisfied? When will you say that enough is enough?

    Then.

    There’s a backlash. People hate you now. The mood of the country has turned against you. Your so-called ‘overnight’ success (which took decades to achieve) which inflated your ego to the point that you thought you would be welcome in the national dialogue – the daily discourse – was grossly miscalculated. People fucking hate you. You’re the cunt who wrote those bestselling books, and in the popular imagination you’re another elitist wealthy shitbag, disconnected from the plight of ordinary people no matter how humble your origins were.

    Why did you do this?

    Sure, you’re rich now; you’re a household name. Your face is recognisable. You can court a little controversy and fill the tabloid headlines, easily. Is that what you wanted? Was that your aim, all along?

    Ultimately, aren’t you infamous? Aren’t you known for all the wrong reasons? If there was ever a smidgin of integrity which lurked at the centre of you, isn’t that now long lost? You’re just an attention seeking publicity whore. You’re just a disgrace. You’re not an artist. You’re not a creator. You’re just part of the newspaper-selling, avertising-sellling, merchandise-selling, capitalist machine. You couldn’t be more distant from your original “I like writing” origins, even if you tried your hardest.

    How did it end up like this?

     

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  • Infamy

    This is a story about wanting to be noticed…

    Why I write

    This is not a pity party, and everyone has an equally valid claim to misery and depression, but it’s important – to me – that I relate this part of the most influential period of my life.

    At home, I could do nothing right, and was largely ignored other than as an ornament; a clothes horse; a performing animal, let out of its cage to delight the adults, as a party trick, and otherwise told to be quiet and keep out of the way.This, I think, is not unusual, but was greatly exacerbated my lack of a sibling until the age of 10, and my parents’ extreme anti-social behaviour, which left me isolated in the extreme: often in very remote rural areas; far from friends and schoolmates.

    At school, I could not avoid attention of the wrong kind. My parents’ obsession with training me as their performing animal, for their party tricks, meant that I was either alone, or doing my routine for adults. I had no relationships with children, before school. If you want to fuck up your children and ruin their lives, it’s quite easy: do everything in your power to make them different so that they don’t fit in; deprive them of every opportunity to socialise; force them to act like little adults, instead of allowing them to be children – that will guarantee that they won’t fit in at all at school, and they will be bullied from dawn to dusk, every. single. fucking. day.

    Good manners and confidence in the company of adults did, briefly, confer an advantage in the workplace. This supposed ‘maturity’ was useful for making a good first impression. Employers certainly mistook me for a person who was mature beyond their years, but this was entirely superficial: a party trick learned, because it was the only way I was able to receive praise as a child – from the small amount of adult company my parents kept; those rare occasions when I was trotted out and expected to perform. However, I had no maturity at all – the social isolation, the neglect and the deprivation, was masked and hidden behind impeccable manners and precise diction; expansive vocabulary, learned from books.

    As life has worn on, my age relative to my peers has become less obvious, less remarkable. Instead, those deep wounds inflicted in childhood have come to the fore. Exacerbated by extreme stress and intolerable circumstances, the socially isolated child, deprived of a social life and otherwise ill-equipped to face the world with the same skills and experience of his peers, has resurfaced. I feel as though I’m suffering the same horrors again.

    In extreme circumstances, we revert to ‘type’… our ‘true’ personality surfaces, and our mask slips.

    I wonder to myself, as I write stuff which is read by thousands of people who are suffering a life-and-death crisis in their lives, whether I am flirting with infamy. Why do I not implore them to seek professional help and bombard them with crisis counselling phone numbers?

    Maybe I’m evil.

    [Note: I lost a few hundred words here, because of an auto-save glitch, but I can’t be bothered to re-type what I wrote. I hope it still makes sense without the conclusion, as I originally wrote it]

     

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  • Aide-Mémoire

    This is a story about writing prompts…

    Book

    During a more exciting and varied, but also chaotic period of my life, I habitually made a note of writing prompts for myself. I was able to stay somewhat on top of these sparks of inspiration, and turn them into essays, but the list still grew longer and longer.

    I’ve started writing a list of writing prompts again. Currently it has 10 items on it, which have inspired me to write 3 completed essays, which I’ve now published.

    The other thing which inspires me to write, I must admit, is my readers. My readers write to me, which I’m very grateful for, but even those who do not are inspiring me by reading, because there’s nothing worse than feeling ignored, irrelevant or otherwise non-existent. However, there’s also a temptation – which I try to avoid – of writing stuff which I know will bring me more readers. What’s the point of making art, if you’re doing it just for popularity and notoriety – surely that isn’t art at all?

    The majority of my readers – thousands per day – are new readers. Perhaps [most of] my social media followers and [most] friends have tired of the repetitive nature of my writing; the repetition of my story; the lack of any dramatic change in my circumstances. There isn’t much narrative in my writing, because there isn’t much narrative in my life. In the adventures of employee man, one day looks very much like the next.

    Of course, I am grateful that I have a semi-secure source of income – albeit only in the short term – and I have stability and routine. My health and wealth are thriving, relatively speaking, thanks to the boring repetition which is the backbone of my life.

    Perhaps I’ll dig some more hair-raising tales of near-death and destitution out of my memory banks, to amuse and entertain my readers, but I did promise myself that I wouldn’t dwell on the past, and I would attempt to start a new chapter. I would very much like it if I had a substantial period of boring “this is what I ate for breakfast” type typical run-of-the-mill yawnfest blog vapid bullshit, to put some distance between the chaotic, traumatic and nearly fatal period of my life, and the stable, secure life which seems within touching distance; tantalisingly close.

    It feels a little odd to not be in the mood to write, because of low social media engagement, given that I almost exclusively transmit – never receive – and otherwise do not engage myself in discourse; do not engage with the community; do not socialise on social media, per se. A cynical accusation that I want to take, but I never give, could be levelled at me, and I would have little defence; I admit that I don’t spend a lot of time keeping up with the lives of my Twitter friends, although I am extremely grateful for their continued support, and the occasional message or cat pic.

    Also, I’m a little burnt out. I’ve been working very hard on a demanding project, and I’m extremely emotionally invested; I’ve been working with maximum intensity. In addition, of course, I pour my guts out every day onto the pages of this website. Writing and publishing a halfway-decent essay every day is not trivial. Those who say I’m not generous with my time and effort, are being unnecessarily cruel and unkind, if not downright wrong.

    I’m not out in the community helping little old grannies cross the road or picking up litter, but people do write to me from all around the world every day, to say that my writing has been helpful – in some way – to them. I’m not saying that what I’m doing is particularly praiseworthy, or patting myself on the back in general, but I do put a lot of effort in, and that effort is not entirely a fool’s errand.

    Anyway, that was today’s essay. I hope you liked it. Even just a teeny tiny bit.

     

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  • Vanity Publishing

    This is a story about a crowded market…

    Art stuff

    Remind me again why only certain people are allowed to make music, literature and art. Remind me again why the rest of us are banned from releasing our creative endeavours into the world. Remind me again why the creative arts are the sole preserve of the spoiled brattish kids of rich indulgent parents.

    Oh yes. That’s right. The internet changed all that.

    Sure, the old gatekeepers are still there. Sure, if you want to get signed to a record label, a publishing house, a gallery or some other elitist institution, and publish using their marketing machine, then you’ll need to kiss their arses and play by their rules.

    Sure, the new gatekeepers are now in place. If you want to have a heap of subscribers on your YouTube channel, listeners on Spotify, or readers on your website, then you’ll have to play by the rules of the algorithms; you’ll have to comply with the demands of those digital platforms.

    But.

    Previously, only the likes of a multimillionaire rock star – like Brian Eno – would be able to afford professional-grade music production equipment. Previously, only the likes of a multimillionaire famous author – like Jeffrey Archer – would have been able to self-publish a book. Previously, only a multimillionaire artist – like Damien Hirst – would have been able to get their art seen by vast numbers of people.

    Now.

    Now is the time of self-publishing.

    Sure, it’s not great being locked into a platform like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Amazon, Apple, Spotify or suchlike, in order to get your art out into the world, but it does level the playing field a little. Sure, self-promotion is hard work, and it’s still impossible to give up the day job, unless you have a trust fund; the barrier to entry is still extremely high. However, in some ways, the barrier to entry is quite low.

    A friend of mine has a YouTube channel, filled with 90+ minute monologues. I sometimes browse the latest videos which my friend has published, and I think “oh god, that’s me, isn’t it? Pumping out long insane monologues, out into the ether of the internet, where nobody really takes any notice”. Not to denigrate my friend’s creative output at all, but I am incredibly fearful that I’m adding nothing but noise into the world.

    I offer you a quote (as I very rarely do) which I often think about:

    “[George] Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. [Aldous] Huxley feared those who would give us so much [information] that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism” — Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

    I think we are living in Huxley’s feared dystopia, in the context of being overwhelmed with information. The 4th industrial revolution – the information revolution – has created the most complicated man-made object: the internet. I often worry that the internet is a curse, not a blessing, given that I end up empathising with the plight of a Fijian villager whose prize pig was stolen, literally on the other side of the world. I rarely leave the house; I rarely talk to my neighbours, but every morning I wake up to an inbox full of people asking me “what’s the best way to kill myself?” and “why are you not dead?”. The internet is a mixed blessing.

    I might look back on this period of creativity with cynicism, bitterness and a jaded outlook, which causes me to think that I was wasting my time. I might – feeling depressed and anxious – reflect that my writing wasn’t very good; that I was making a fool of myself in public. The whole endeavour might seem very cringeworthy and embarrassing, with retrospect.

    The internet doesn’t forget, very easily. I’m somewhat etched into the fabric of the internet now. Stuff I’ve written is quite literally etched onto metal with lasers, and buried in the Arctic, to preserve it for posterity. Not, I might add, at my own expense. My vanity and ego are gigantic, but not quite big enough -yet- to embark on such a folly as burying some digital keepsakes beneath the frozen tundra; a monument to my own stupidity.

    Of course, nobody in their right mind spends 5+ years of their life, writing and publishing 1.3 million words, which remained for the vast majority of that time, largely unread; unnoticed. I am, obviously, more unhinged than my friend with a YouTube channel: at least they didn’t have to go to the effort of painstakingly constructing pleasing prose, checked for spelling and grammar, and accompanied by a hand-chosen photo which was Photoshopped to improve it, before publishing. Only a madman would go to all that effort, unpaid; unrewarded.

     

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  • I’m Feeling Lucky

    This is a story about friction…

    Spinning tops

    Some days I wish there was an “I’m feeling lucky” button I could hit, which would randomly choose a photograph, title and “This is a story about…” preamble for me, then I would just write my daily essay and be done. Sometimes, I’ve got nothing I want to say, particularly, which hasn’t been said before, ad nauseam.

    Yesterday I wrote about my murky past, doing jobs in hated industries. Quite rightly hated, I should add, because of the misery and suffering they cause. I’d be lying if I said I wrote it and didn’t care about the reaction: somewhat deafening silence. I don’t know what I was expecting. I suppose either a load of villagers with pitchforks and torches, out to lynch me for my evil deeds, or else maybe some people saying “it’s OK, Nick, we know you were young and foolish and regret your actions now; we forgive you because you’re such a great guy for spilling your guts all over the public internet every single day”.

    Nope.

    Didn’t happen.

    So, here is a picture of some wooden spinning tops, and a rather bizarre stream-of-consciousness brain dump, which is now ending. Short and sweet. See how you like them apples.

     

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  • Spouting Tosh

    This is a story about verbal diarrhoea…

    Dusty keyboard

    In the interests of writing regularly, but trying not to be repetitive and boring, I sometimes try to pick a subject which will hopefully bring a bit of variety. My writing style is a stream-of-consciousness, so it can be a little difficult to write about a subject I haven’t been thinking about; I tend to jump around, in a scatterbrained kind of way. I hope the low quality can be excused.

    Having written and published more than 1.3 million words on this website, my next long-term goal is to reach 2 million. When I was getting close to my first million, I became quite fixated with the finishing line, so I was writing an enormous quantity, but the quality for my readers wasn’t great.

    My present plan is to write 700 words per day, from Monday to Friday, and to have the weekend off… like a ‘normal’ job. At that rate, I will be producing 182,000 words per year, so I won’t hit 2 million words until 2024, which I guess is OK. What’s the rush?

    The reason for writing 700 words, or fewer, is that it means each essay is a short read instead of a long one. Readers are occasionally in the mood to wade through a long essay, but more often than not, they just want something snack-size. If I hope to cultivate long-term daily readers, I have to avoid bombarding them with more than they can possibly consume.

    Why do I even want readers anyway, you might ask. Well, that’s easy: why write and publish if nobody’s reading? You might as well write in a private diary if you’re not going to publish. Frankly, I find it great, to exist in public (a little bit) so that I’m not quite so lonely and alone; isolated. Even though it seems a little strange, to have such a one-sided conversation, it’s better than being completely invisible. Without my public presence, I’d have sunk without a trace a long time ago.

    I’ve written 334 words. That’s enough for today.

     

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  • Imitation and Flattery

    This is a story about rôle models…

    Glasses

    I was very lost in 2015, without any purpose or identity beyond some things which were destroying me, my self esteem, my legacy, my reputation. I was sinking; doomed. I was trying and failing to regain any control over my chaotic and unmanageable life, and to gather enough dignity to carry on living.

    A technologist friend has always helped me to discover things in life which have become integral to my future. He taught me to be a programmer and he got me interested in writing, as well as a heap of other things, like political views, which I now consider to be very much a part of my identity.

    My friend has written and published online for countless years, and I have read and I have imitated. He was a prolific blog contributor, touching many lives worldwide. He has lived and breathed social media and embodied his online persona. I have imitated.

    My parents chose to intoxicate themselves with drugs and alcohol, and were only concerned with their own selfishness, which mainly revolved around social isolation, lest their neglectful lazy shameful behaviour be publicly exposed. Luckily, I had excellent friends and their parents were inspirational people. I saw in other people’s families, the way that things should be and I saw in my peers some ideas about what I could be. Friends have shaped who I am and given me the inspiration to pursue my profession in technology, and my passion for online communities, combined with my love of writing.

    To say that I love writing is perhaps wrong. I’ve written a couple of novels, one of which I’m quite proud with, but I don’t write fiction as regularly as I’d like. Perhaps if I was a more natural writer I would always be writing little short stories, or exploring my imagination in other ways, but instead I write these “non-story” stories, every single day if I can.

    I cringe a little to think of my friend’s judgement regarding the wrong-headed thinking, or mistakes of the past. If ever there’s somebody I would be ashamed of disappointing, it would be my old friend. If there are certain standards of behaviour I hold myself to, it’s not because of any standards from my parents – alcoholic druggies – but instead it’s because of a worldview developed in the company of my friends and their families, whose opinions I seem to have taken to heart.

    When I think about, for example, my friend’s parents’ view on hitting children, then I am upset that my parents were such barbaric ignoramuses, when their peer group was able to comport themselves the right way. If my friends’ parents were able to be productive members of society, sociable and not drunk drug addicts; able to raise children without hitting them; able to raise children with kindness and generosity, indulging their children’s talents and encouraging them to reach their full potential… then why not mine? I do not know, but I do know that my parents were abysmal failures, while many of my friends’ parents are awesome role models, and some of their children too.

    “They did the best they knew” is absolute horse sh1t when you have your peers to connect with; you can hold yourself to the standard of those around you, as a minimum. If you’re the only antisocial drunk druggie losers who don’t have a job, then you sort yourself out and start behaving responsibly, you don’t force your child to leave school again and again, and drag them away from their friends, isolating them. That’s f**king barbaric awful inexcusably sh1t behaviour.

    I meant to write yesterday and I’m sad that I didn’t. I meant write merely to thank my friend for inspiring me to write, but also to acknowledge my friend’s role in giving me a career, and in inspiring me to think about many things. I meant to write only to speak of the positive, but I seem to have strayed into the territory of the negative.

    My friend never writes vicious tirades like this, and I know that my ingratitude I show towards my parents could be particularly improper at the particular time, given a traumatic family situation in his life, which is nobody’s fault but rotten bad luck.

    I wish I could be more positive, but this blog serves as a kind of safety pressure-release valve, which has functioned extremely effectively in enabling me to regain some self esteem, control, dignity and other important things – such as a sense of purpose – when my life has otherwise crumbled around me.

     

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  • Every. Single. Day.

    This is a story about pointless exercises…

    Spotty tummy

    If something’s going to be crappy quality – rushed – then maybe it’s not worth doing. If something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well, right?

    Well, most of us don’t have the time to do anything to a high standard. We have busy lives. Who has the spare time and energy to have a side hustle?

    Anyway, I have decided to adhere to the ritual and routine, even when I don’t really have the time to properly dedicate to the job in hand. I am happy to say that I’m writing again, every single day, even if I’m not writing very much at all, and what I am writing is hurried rubbish.

    There’s a certain minimum amount of time and effort that goes into choosing a photo and a title, plus the “this is a story about XXX…” bit, plus the tagging and all the other stuff, like cross-posting on social media. There’s a minimum amount of effort required to do all that. Why bother? Purely for the satisfaction of saying that I maintained the discipline and didn’t cop out when it would’ve been easier to neglect doing something that I promised myself I would do, without fail, except when circumstances prevent me.

    I like following through with things more than I like skipping my chores when I’m not in the mood to do them.

    Apologies for the limited weekend service. Things will pick up when I have some time to sit at the keyboard and compose my thoughts.

     

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  • Rules Are Rules

    This is a story about obedience…

    Fire

    Why write every day? Why adhere to an arbitrary rulebook? Why constrain yourself and force yourself to do difficult things?

    It was important to me to write today, before midnight, purely to say that I’ve maintained my daily writing routine. It was important to me to not miss a day.

    I’m not going to write much. I simply wanted to say that I’m still here, attempting to write on daily basis.

     

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  • Browsing History

    This is a story about being time poor…

    Time for tea

    I went to write a blog post called “Not Enough Hours in the Day” but then my browser told me that I’d already used that title before. The photo I had selected is one that I’ve used before, which I noticed when the file name was already used.

    My working day is done and I just got home via the supermarket. My girlfriend just arrived and I need to cook dinner.

    To claim that I don’t have any time would be untrue, strictly speaking, but it’s not easy working full time and finding the time for side hustles. Obviously, my blog is not a profit-making endeavour, so it can be a little hard to understand why I’d divert valuable time and energy into doing it, but it does provide me with a number of intangible benefits.

    I don’t particularly want to spend a long time writing when I could be watching movies or TV shows with my girlfriend, but I wanted to maintain the daily writing habit, even if this is little more than a pathetic rushed ‘diary entry’.

    I owe you something more profound.

     

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