François Matarasso

A Selfless Art, Update #3

It’s been nearly a month since I started writing A Selfless Art in earnest. I made a good start, banking over 10,000 words. And then I stalled. I was writing about experiences that shaped my understanding of co-creation because it helps explain why I think what I think, and why that might not be transferable to other situations. But progress was slow. I had to admit that I was bored, and if my words don’t interest me, how could they interest a reader? I found myself in the same dead end as when I’d started work on A Restless Art seven years ago. There are useful, even necessary things to say about where my ideas come from, but I haven’t found a way to do it without slipping into anecdote or banality. 

When I’m bored by my writing I easily fall into the trap of working harder at its style, shifting my attention from what I’m saying to how. Like revving the engine when you’re stuck in mud, this self-consciousness only makes things worse. Formal qualities are important when they communicate better something worthwhile but they can also disguise the emptiness of what is being said. Politicians are often accused of using language to obscure meaning but few do it skilfully, which is why we notice their evasions. In a book, with all the cultural authority those artefacts still hold, it’s easier to paper over the cracks with fine writing. The self-conscious writer, with an eye on how their words will affect the reader, can become an untruthful one, chasing admiration rather than connection. The result is a clever, elegant construction as solid – and as meaningful – as a house of cards. 

Caught in that trap, my pace of work slowed and then stopped as family commitments called me away. After a break, I now wonder whether it’s my approach that’s wrong. Perhaps I’ve mistaken simplicity for easiness, hoping to get away with less work, less effort: another sure path to failure. Whatever the truth, I no longer expect to have a draft by the end of the year. I’ve not even found my voice yet (I believe each book has its own, though I doubt readers notice). 

So I’ll start somewhere else this week, and with a different spirit. Avoiding self-consciousness means being self-aware, which is also one of the driving ideas behind the book. In the self-conscious writer, the question ‘How do I look?’ is always close. The self-aware writer asks ‘How am I being?’ The moral weight of those questions is utterly different – and so is the work that they produce.