Discourses of Writing

This chapter turns to the discourses that writers employ when talking about writing-as-work, continuing the thread of ambivalence that weaves throughout this book to demonstrate how writers are discursively constructed and called into subjectivities which are both supportive and undermining. It demonstrates how discourses of love, luck, magic, and ‘being a writer’ are employed by writers when talking about writing-as-work, bringing them into conversation with existing literature and offering fresh analysis. This chapter argues that these discourses position writers in spaces where complaint about difficult or unsatisfactory aspects of making a living from writing becomes difficult but also provide positive subjectivities where writers experience joy, magic, and specialness. It suggests that these discourses function in complex ways and call writers into subjectivities which work both in their favour as workers, and against them, again emphasising the ambivalence of writing-as-work and unpicking the ways in which it is held in tension.