My latest article, Why Bother Writing? is now up on the Literature Network site. It was written in January, when I was preparing to leave for India:
"I carry a book everywhere I go but it’s only when lugging whole boxes of them that you become aware of how heavy text is. I’ve slimmed my library down massively and it’s still too heavy. I think back to the rumours that my university library is sinking under the weight of the text inside. The story wasn’t true, but it sounds like it could be."
The article is about Twitter, phatic communication, and what the point is in writing in a world that already contains so many books.
An interesting and original piece, James. Made me also think of coterie writing, which I think was a big thing in days of yore, but also I guess those art movements which are fuelled by protagonists making work for one another. Anyway, refreshing to get a view that there isn’t just too much noise out there.
Thanks for the comment, Mark, and your suggestion about coterie writing. I’m definitely going to read up on that – it fits in with a lot of things I’ve been thinking about recently.