Archive for March 2021
The fabled, non-existent, writer’s block, which I had recently
I don’t know if I mentioned it but I was recently on a programme designed to teach writers how to become published authors. It included masterclasses, guest speakers, tutorials, and, the pièce de résistance, the chance to submit a book proposal.
A nonfiction book proposal requires a synopsis of the proposed book; a chapter by chapter summary; and sample chapters (which amount to around 10,000 words).
I duly wrote a synopsis; and I worked up a contents list, with summaries of every chapter of my proposed book. Then, it came to write the sample chapters. Here, I discovered a problem. I found it extremely difficult to begin. This was, actually, quite unlike my experience.
Writer’s Block
It may be romanticised in Hollywood movies about writers, and the fabled imaginings of amateur writers, who may warmly picture a glamorous scenario where one has the privilege of being blocked, but, in my experience, most professional writers scoff at the idea of writer’s block.
However, however.
Lately, after writing several thousand words for a writing competition in November and December; plus writing a couple of short stories for a few other competitions in January; plus being involved with this publishing scheme in February and March (for which I am, of course, very grateful) which took a lot of concentration; plus digging deep to put together a decently written proposal.
PLUS the enervating, all-consuming, life-sucking, hope-sieving effects of lockdown and endless Coronavirus news, I felt my well had run dry.
Let’s talk about the well. In my experience, there is a well — a place in my subconscious which stores creative energy. And I have a pretty good sense of when this well is full, and when this well is dry.
Read the rest of this entry »Let’s talk about Rupert Murdoch
For those of us who are literate in the business of news and media the consensus might be that we know Rupert Murdoch all too well, and hearing his name brings about a shudder akin to hearing about an embarrassing skin disease. But I happen to think we don’t talk about him enough. That is, we should all talk about Rupert Murdoch more, dispelling the chilling atmosphere that surrounds this name, bringing it into the light, so that Rupert Murdoch is talked about sufficiently that we all start to wonder, in a cosmic, profound way, just how much influence this one Aussie bloke has had on our lives.
His story is amazing. Nobody can doubt the ambition, ruthlessness, and fortitude of what he has done. Inheriting his father’s business, the junior Murdoch was able to seize many newspapers in his native country to become a major player in the media business in Australia. He used this base to propel himself into the UK, where he would control the fates of important and opinion-setting newspapers like The Sun and The News of the World. From there, he launched himself into New York City and eventually built, with the aid of Roger Ailes, the Fox News empire, establishing his presence in the most powerful nation on the planet.
This one man, who has never formally entered the political arena as a voted-for politician, has been able to assert his influence and control over three major Anglo-powers. His dominion – and it is a dominion – spreads from one side of the Pacific to the other, and reaches across the Atlantic. This is not hyperbole. This one individual has exerted major influence over politics, media, and business in the English-speaking world for the past six decades. It is like a conspiracy that conspiracy theorists are too callow to dream up.
His instruments have been TV (Fox News), newspapers (The Sun), and the surrounding force of influence exerted by the more prestigious brands of The Wall Street Journal and The Times (of London). He has built profit machines in the form of BSkyB; Fox Entertainment Group; Dow Jones & Company, and many others that all go on to make up News Corp., which also owns one of the Big Five publishers (of books).
That this doesn’t go more remarked upon is perhaps for the simple reason that most of us can’t do much about it. He is like a far away figure, like Palpatine (The Emperor), or a dark lord hovering in the background, which we can’t do much to change, so we shy away from speaking about it. There is also fear. Pre-Leveson inquiry, he spread fear through the celebrity sphere, and political establishment. This was no joke. British politicians courted him. Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell expended considerable charm and effort into wooing the Australian. You can learn more from the excellent three-part documentary, available on BBC iPlayer, The Rise of the Murdoch Dynasty.
This is all to say that Rupert Murdoch held influence because people were, are, afraid of his influence. And rightly so. He torpedoed John Major and Gordon Brown’s electoral chances. His Fox News empire holds considerable influence over the American electorate. And in the British and US tabloids (New York Post; The Sun), he has ruined many a reputation. Even when I was writing this blog post, I thought for more than a few seconds, that he might bring his formidable resources to bear on this humble blog of mine, which is ridiculous. Yet that is how fear operates. Ask any brave “soldier” on the Internet in censorship-ruled China.
But we should try to understand, or at the very least, vocalise, how much Rupert Murdoch has held sway over our lives. Yet this is not, actually, an easy thing to do. (Just FYI, he will soon be marking, or just passed, his 90th birthday – and from reports it sounds like he’s not slowing down.)
Measuring the impact of Rupert Murdoch is like measuring the impact of bad weather – in many seasons, it’s just clearly bad. It is a form of tyranny, and for those us in Britain we are used to the monolithic, all-encompassing oppressiveness of bad weather. The difference being, weather eventually changes, but Rupert Murdoch stays the same.
Just because we know it is bad weather, and complain about it being so, can we change the dark clouds into something fairer, more open, and pluralistic? This is the eternal sunshine – the hope – of liberal democracies. Yet the cut and thrust of deal-making, and the clearsighted ambition of just one singular man (or woman), can taint the whole system. Liberal democracies are designed to clamp back the overwhelming, singular force of any one individual. And, yet, Rupert Murdoch has been able to tower, in shadow, over the democracies of three sovereign nations. This is, plainly, ridiculous. Yet it is the truth. How could this have been so?
The problem is freedom. In any free market, there will just naturally be some people who will rise to the top – whether using pre-existing freedoms (such as the freedom possessing more capital grants you) – or by being very smart, fortunate, and strategic. Someone like Jeff Bezos falls into the latter. And someone like Rupert Murdoch falls into the middle, granted the privilege of inheriting wealth, but also rising to his position by dint of being an excellent businessman.
Capitalism works in concert with democracies and creates strange collisions. It generates greed, corruption, and corrodes our selves and our societies. And yet we like what capitalism has done for us. (Or most of us do.) We benefit from the fruits of this system. But someone like Rupert Murdoch is also a product of this system. His vaunting ambition might seem a bit weird, a bit cringey, and downright creepy in that intimidating sense he’s going to stab us in the back like Macbeth, but we recognise it. Shakespeare knew his type and we know it now. The Romans and the Athenians knew it all too well – better than we do. I can’t say how far back it extends, but pre-literate societies probably understood it too. Oh, there’s that guy who tries to hoard all the apples! But it’s capitalism that has made the apple-hoarder into a transatlantic apple-hoarder who also sells us advertising making us want more apples. (This is clearly a metaphor extended too far.)
But I don’t want to be anti-capitalist (or too much) since I don’t see an alternative that is superior. But there needs to be more courage and more bravery to confront the power-hungry, and corrupted, personages of individuals like Rupert Murdoch. We can, and should, find our voice. Alex Beresford did it recently, beautifully. Akala has done it. In our democracies, where we are free to express ourselves, not talking about something is a form of cowardice. I just hope that those who wish things to be different put in the work to recognise things as they are – to be able to see things clearly and so they can name what is there right in front of them – and by doing so, change things with effort, grace, and resourcefulness.
My adventures in time-blocking (as a freelance writer)
I don’t know about you but I’ve felt fatigued and disconsolate as the boredom of lockdown, the repetitiveness of things, has dragged down my usually shiny, enduring sense of creative vigour. I just haven’t felt able or motivated to do things. Sleep has sometimes been deeply comforting, yet also fractious.
Wanting to get back on the game, to be once more motivated, I thought I’d try a productivity technique. It’s known as time blocking. I first heard of it, years ago, from the Deep Work and So Good They Can’t Ignore You author, and professional Email hater, Cal Newport. He is a computer science professor and a proponent of this practice.
Time blocking involves making the time to draw up a fairly well sketched out plan or schedule for the following day. And, instead of making a simple list of things you need to do, you set aside parts of the day for certain tasks — that is, you block out time especially for the important tasks that most achieve your long-term goals. This is supposed to help you commit to the focused, concentrated, uninterrupted blocks of time to make progress on these goals — rather than having those sundry, seemingly urgent, but ultimately arbitrary tasks take up all your energy. A diagram will probably explain things better.
On a Sunday, I drew up this flow chart (above), describing what I’d do the next day, with my time carefully allocated. You might notice that there are long breaks but with time-blocking the underlying principle is that you spend the work-blocks focused on what Cal Newport describes as deep work (writing a chapter of a novel, for example, or making real progress on a graphic design commission, say).
It felt comforting knowing that I wouldn’t need to expend unnecessary energy having to think “now what do I need to do?” once certain tasks were completed. I only needed to follow the plan, like a happy automaton. After all, there can be freedom and contentment in following instructions, as anyone who’s played with Lego will know.
Let us cast aside the ridiculous notion that creativity is best kindled in an unstructured burst of spontaneous genius. It just doesn’t work like that, for most people. But discipline, putting the work in, and following certain procedures, rituals, programmes, can be enormously fertile and productive. Freeing.
So Monday started. And, of course, my lovingly crafted schedule was immediately blown apart by a chance connection with some copywriting work coming from China. The connection was simply too rich a possibility to cast aside, so of course I followed up on it. But no matter, I simply adjusted myself. And for the rest of the day, it did feel liberating to just follow the plan. To look down at the plan and know, quickly, certainly, what I needed to be doing next. I was not able to get to all my tasks – something which I did not beat myself over – and I added annotations to each time-block, noting what I did instead, what I had still to do, and what I achieved outside of the confines of the schedule.
Tuesday, and I just carried on with the unfinished tasks from the previous day and I neglected to make a flow chart, to time block. I worried.
Wednesday – I had a phone call with a news assistant based in Shanghai. Then, later on, I had an existential crisis. Again, I failed to make a time-blocked plan. I wondered about the need to constantly work – to be productive. I looked at all the advertisements crowding my social media, the webpages I visit, and re-embraced my deep suspicion of capitalism.
Do I really want those things? Should I work myself to the ground in order to afford these items which are so adamant about me wanting to desire to possess them? But what about my ambitions, my goals? HMMMMM.
Thursday was better. I cannot put my finger on exactly what it was, but it may have to do with the fact I was on a rather celebratory Zoom call, with heartfelt emotion connecting me with a host of humans, and it was a beloved feeling, far from the madding crowd of capitalistic greed. I also went for a jog, listening to Daft Punk (rip), feeling Alive and Discovered.
Friday, I did some work early on, then I cooked Moroccan lamb for my family, with apricots and cumin and the warming colours of North Africa displacing the gloom of British weather.
So, yeah, that was my rather unsuccessful experiment with time blocking. If you want more of my advice, I can send you a postcard.
Lu-Hai Liang 