writing update (no kitchen sink drama, sorry)
Hello again friends, comrades, and enemies,
I hope you’re all weathering the world alright, not too hellworn. I’m alright. Honestly I’m very good personally - family stuff’s been nice, had a bit of time off over the holidays then back to work but on rewarding work, and been exercising a bit more - while the awfulness of being in a world with ongoing genocide and a global pandemic is intensely present. It’s confusing in two ways - on the one hand I feel like I should feel better given that things are going well in my immediate small circle, but I don’t feel better because hellworn, while on the other hand it feels wrong at some level to feel good while so many living on parallel tracks are being destroyed. Having written that I realize now I could have simply sent another link to this Brecht poem! If you’ve not read it, or not read it recently, I couldn’t recommend it more highly. The English version is down the page a bit, below a bunch of Lorem Ipsum text they left in the page by accident. https://harpers.org/2008/01/brecht-to-those-who-follow-in-our-wake/
Before I forget again, I also want to highly recommend to you this essay by Kirstin Munro: https://www.academia.edu/42785593/The_Welfare_State_and_the_Bourgeois_Family_Household It summarizes and builds on some marxist feminist criticisms of the class nature and patriarchal character of the welfare state in the UK in the 70s. It’s a good antidote to nostalgia for the good old days (what we really need is something new!) and shares a lot in common with the perspective from Simon Clarke (Munro’s influenced by Clarke and the writers she focuses on were interlocutors with and to some extent influences on Clarke) that I mentioned in my last post. So yeah, check it out. It’s also pretty short so not a huge investment of your time.
I actually sat down here to write out some thoughts on some English movies - following from my Ken Loach binge I mentioned a while back I’ve become interested in Kitchen Sink Drama. I assume everyone in the world knows all about this and I’m the last to know, being as I am not a Culture Understander, but if you like me are unfamiliar with this stuff, I’ve just been reading the wikipedia page then googling the names of the films. More thoughts later, eventually, connected to some stuff I continue to think about off and on related to ideas in the UK far left in the 50s.
Like I said I sat down to write that stuff but I thought I’d first write out a bit of an update on my writing life first, and then that went on too long so I had to get to sleep (btw You’d Be Better Off Sleeping: A Life Going On Too Long is the new working title for the memoir I’m never writing). To be totally honest I think part of why it went on so long is I was procrastinating about writing about those Brit movies because I’m intimidated by cultural objects. (Schooling has been significantly inhibiting in my life.) Anywho what follows is just the ‘what have I been up to writing-wise’ update plus some links to some stuff I’ve written about writing process/life as a writer. At some later date I will get around to rambling a bit about things English, cultural, and socialist. All in due time.
I got asked to write an essay for an edited collection in the fall and didn’t know how to do it - the editor asked for an abstract and I thought ‘I can’t summarize an idea I haven’t had yet’ so I wrote a few thousand words and an apology and sent that. The essay is me talking about my life in activist circles - I live in fear of self-importance so I want to stress that ‘my life in activist circles’ is intended in the sense of ‘my account of being one ant in a big anthill in central Indiana’ - over the years and then my account of life during the most recent iteration of the hellscape, ie the pandemic. The editor said she thinks the essay is significantly about grief, a subject I feel like I live without understanding. If it eventually comes out, you’ll be some of the first to know.
I’m also writing an essay on an old court case on occupational safety and health regulation. I’m worried it’ll both suck and disappoint, my hope is to get to where it merely disappoints (I’m in the grip of a two cases of impostor syndrome, one mild and of the garden variety and the other intense and taking the form of a deep certainty I’m the wrong writer for the audience). My argument is basically that while we want good laws rather than bad ones, capitalism destroys people and we can’t settle for good laws. Seems obvious, and again I worry it’s the wrong audience. We’ll find out. If the editors reject it I’ll drop it here. If it comes out, again you’ll be among the first to know.
I also have begun to get a little more seriously committed to the terrifying prospect of writing a second book. I’m not ready to talk about it in any detail but I wanted to say here that I’m making the effort to write it or to move closer to writing it, so that I’ll be less likely to chicken out. In short, I read something on writing that I thought was a mixed bag but that recommended writing a lot of words regularly and having them add up to a whole big heap of words, then seeing what you have. This is basically how I work anyway, though inconsistently of late, and I found that exciting. So I’ve decided to write thirty thousand on-topic words for this new book, as quickly as I can without getting manic and bingey, and then I’ll print that out and read it (that will hurt, but I accept my fate, in a sobbing self-pitying way) and at that point I should be able to figure out how to properly write that book. We’ll find out!
Speaking of writing, I wanted to mention some stuff I wrote about writing a while back, in case that’s of interest to any of you. I found writing my dissertation and my book both pretty bruising experiences, but I also find that I’m drawn to certain kinds of bruising experiences (I started back to weightlifting some recently and regularly sore from that, this is a clumsy writing analogy I’m a shitty writer, sue me). After the book came out The Legal History Blog kindly asked me to write a bit about my book, and I responded probably coming on a little too strong by writing a series of essays about my writing life during the diss and book. I tried to write the kinds of things I was grateful - desperate, frankly - to read while doing that writing. I’ve had some people who are wired like me (condolences, friends) and who are in the throes of the worst moments of writing projects (pouring one out for you right this moment!) tell me that they found the essays affirming and bits of them helpful, so I figure I’d mention them here. They’re online here: https://legalhistoryblog.blogspot.com/2020/07/thank-you-nate-holdren.html Related to writing, I put these up on the twitter a while back but thought I’d drop them here too in case they’re any use. This is the book proposal I wrote for my book. If I remember correctly I talk in those essays about the process of writing the proposal. A key thing I did was read others’ proposals and ID specific bits to copy the format of - basically I’d pretend I was that author if they were writing about my stuff. Having benefitted massively from others being willing to share their proposals with me, I’m very happy to share mine. So that’s here https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/aa03rlr4fkii9z0j0xtbn/NH-book-proposal-to-share.docx?rlkey=gu2t305xnrxn8ree7ljsdn7hg&dl=0 and related, in the spirit of ‘write a lot of words about it and then try to start it’ like I mentioned for writing a new book, at this link is the free writing I did to try to figure out what the idea was for the book, drawing from the dissertation but not actually being the dissertation. That stuff’s here, again in case it’s any use. https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/vm000p2tadn3ilir5bett/NH-free-writing-on-the-way-to-my-book-proposal.docx?rlkey=o37kszy1y8pzsimjtkpsv5qvf&dl=0
The above is partly just elaborate throat clearing and house keeping and, and, what do you call it when, well, hmm, let’s say you’re from the midwest and you’re not properly socialized into the life of - I’m not sure I’m using these words right, please bear with me - what are known as ‘feeling’ and ‘c0mmunication’ and ‘being open’ to the ‘people’ you’re in ‘relationships’ with. In that case, you might have a big burning thing bubbling up inside you and you’re around someone whose presence turns up the burner, so what you do while it simmers is you talk about - depending on the particular liquid that’s burning and bubbling - the mix tape you made them, or what’s on the TV, or memories of old times and relatives, or, of course, the weather. That thing that you talk about because you can’t talk about the thing you need to talk about, whatever you call that, that’s a lot of the throat clearing. And why do you gotta clear your throat? I’m not entirely sure but I have a strong hunch it has something to do with not taking enough literature classes.
Anyhow the point is - do keep up - that what I really wanted to write about here - and now it’s too late, I’ll probably have to break off to sleep and come back later, or else be way too tired tomorrow and struggle to hit my deadlines - is English social realist movies and a particular strand of leftist thought in the UK in the 50s. And I’ve run out of time plus this is plenty long already so I have to get back to that at a later date.
Keeping on trucking,
Nate