I launched nuakh by describing my desire to write cold takes, to not publish quickly or flippantly, but to wait to share my writing. Typically, I’ve been waiting around 3 months to do so.
Occasionally this throws up some odd circumstances, like when I wrote about how the country felt after the Queen’s death two months later, and then the following January. Funnily enough, no one was that interested. The lesson here is the one I’ve generally been trying to learn: you don’t need to hear from me on current affairs.
If you really want to hear my hot takes, you can always follow me on Twitter. I like a lot of pictures of cats.
We live in a world of what Douglas Rushkoff calls Present Shock, where the ever-present social internet, 24 hour news, and the push notification means that—as his subtitle puts it—everything happens now. Neil Postman’s genealogy of the media malaise, in his seminal Amusing Ourselves to Death, starts with the way that the invention of the telegraph meant that news arrived at ever increasing speed until the disaster somewhere a long way away is now a thing that we are living through as well. For all this might have positive impacts for philanthropy and our ability to organise humanitarian relief, Mark Sayers points out in Strange Days the way that also breeds ‘ambient anxiety.’ We are anxious about things over there despite their impact on us being negligible or difficult to trace.
While quality Christian current affairs writing is valuable to us, as we learn how to think through the events of the day Christianly, it’s not my niche. I’d rather jump off the events I’m living through into a broader principle that might be relevant in a few months time. We desperately need more thoughtful Christian writing. I think my blog is helping me do that, though we shouldn’t mistake this for that, my most thoughtful writing is article length and so happens in other people’s journals. We need more of those too.
I’m going to continue writing cold takes because it works for me. I don’t think everyone needs to, but I imagine more of us need to, so I commend the practice to you. Here are three reasons I think it makes me a better writer.
It’s good for my soul
I’d like more people to read my stuff. I’d prefer to not be doing the job I do to make ends meet, I’d love to be thinking, teaching, writing, and mentoring full time. That’s probably a long way off if it’s even possible, but it’s incredibly tempting to make a name for myself in the quickest way possible. If you build a platform, it’s more likely that you can get paid for Christian thinking and teaching.
Unfortunately, the simplest and quickest way to do that is to bust out the most controversial things you possibly can, time and again. I hope that I don’t shy away from controversy, as that’s not becoming of a Pastor, but I try not to seek it out. Without meaning to pass any judgement on others who do that, I’m not convinced my soul could handle it. I suspect there are some who can, but many less than who engage in this way of writing and speaking frequently.
Writing ahead of time helps with this. There are a couple of pieces in my drafts folder that have been there for a while. Others have been deleted or sections of them reworked into something else because once my emotions have cooled, I decide it’s not wise to post. Some of those might see the light of day, but long after the events that spawned them and probably without any reference to those events.
It’s good for my writing
I think it makes me a better writer. I do think my writing is improving, for all some of my best work was done in the first year of blogging that’s because I was marinating ideas for years and saying them for the first time. You can judge this for yourself, though I’m amused that ‘good writing’ (like this) gets very mixed reactions from people I know. You might suggest that writing is subjective, but you would be profoundly wrong, you Philistine. And this is what happens when I don’t give myself three months to consider and edit: I think I’m funny.
I’ve edited myself out of trouble on numerous occasions.
Mostly it improves my writing because editing is easier when I can’t remember what I wrote the first time. It’s easier to spot when what I’ve written doesn’t make sense or isn’t clearly argued. There are, of course, still plenty of errors, sloppy arguments, and mixed metaphors. I’m not a natural editor. When teaching in a secondary school I learned that I was good at winging it, and I am, but it does mean I tend towards wanting to throw out a first draft into the world. Writing is rewriting they tell me. ‘They’ are right, so I need to cool down my takes.
It’s good for my life
In order to write regularly I have had to learn a rhythm of writing, if I did it when I felt like it you would not get two posts a week. I work full time and lead a church for about another 20 hours on top of that a week, so a couple of thousand words is about all I can make time to crack out week-by-week.
Working around three months ahead gives me the ability to not write two pieces in the two hours after work on a Wednesday if I can’t for some reason. That’s my writing time, but creative work does require a particular emotional and mental disposition. I’ve learned how to get myself there the majority of the time, but I can’t always.
Honestly, it’s been a year. My ‘buffer’ has been eroded to about eight pieces ahead (four weeks), which is less than I’d like and produces stress of its own. So, my plan is to take a writing ‘rest’ over the summer with the aim of building up my buffer. You’re still going to get two posts a week, but through July and August one of those will be a repost: either some of my very early work that no one read or a ‘greatest hits’ piece. You can decide which are which.
Writing more
I’d like to write more, I’d particularly like to write more longform work because it would be good for my thinking. There may be opportunities to do so, but time will tell. For now, I appreciate you reading my writing, especially those that do so regularly. Thank you.
Photo by Matthew Henry on Unsplash
To subscribe and receive email notifications for future posts, scroll all the way to the bottom of the page.
Would you like to support my work? The best thing you can do is share this post with your friends. Why not consider also joining my Patreon to keep my writing free for everyone. You can see other ways to support me here.
nuakh 