Advice to a Young Blogger (2): On Establishing Your Blog as a Plane of Immanence

Gilles Deleuze attempting to keep things simple

 

 

I. 

 

In a recent post I offered some advice about blogging; stressing the need to be consistent, insistent, and persistent if one wishes to establish a plane of immanence [click here].

 

But Franz, from Austria, has written to ask what is meant by this complex concept, borrowed from Deleuzian philosophy [1], in relation to a humble theory of blogging.

 

So, let me try and answer ...

 

 

II. 

 

By establishing a plane of immanence - in relation to a theory of blogging - I mean that one must do more than merely create a space of writing in which to publish one's ideas, memories, observations, and holiday snaps [2].

 

On a blog conceived as a plane of immanence, we find an intricate network of forces, particles, connections, affects, and becomings and the writer becomes a subject-without-identity - a difference engineer - not an author who personally vouches for the truth content of the posts or guarantees the logical organisation and development of the blog. 

 

On a blog conceived as a plane of immanence, posts shouldn't be considered as empty forms awaiting for an author to fill them with content in order to give them their significance. Posts should be thought, rather, as active productions (or events) in themselves that require concrete methods of immanent evaluation rather than texts awaiting judgement with reference to a transcendent model of the True, the Beautiful, and the Good.     

 

The key thing is: on a blog conceived as a plane of immanence, one can ensure the eternal return of difference; not repetition of the same. In that way, blogging is about becoming, not securing identity. 

 

And remember: Becoming is a verb with a consistency all its own ... [3]  

 

Notes

 

[1] Deleuze can be a difficult philosopher to read at times, but I think it's fair to say that when he writes of a plane of immanence, he's putting forward an epistemological notion; but when he writes of the plane of immanence, he posits an ontological idea (developing Spinoza's monism). It's the former that has always most interested me; that is to say, the fact that there can be multiple planes of immanence each corresponding to an image of thought. 

 

[2] Like Deleuze, I do not think writing is an attempt to impose a coherent and conventional linguistic form on lived experience; blogging should not become a form of personal overcoding. Any writing that is reliant upon the recounting of childhood memories, foreign holidays, lost loves, or sexual fantasies, is not only frequently bad writing, but dead writing; for literature dies from an excess of emotion, imagination, and autobiography, just as it does from an overdose of reality. See the post entitled 'A Deluezean Approach to Literature' (30 August 2013): click here. 

[3] Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, trans. Brian Massumi (University of Minnesota Press, 1987), p. 239. 

 

 

Advice to a Young Blogger (1): Be Consistent, Insistent, and Persistent

 

Advice to a young blogger just starting out [1] [2]:

 

 

1. Be Consistent

 

Not so much at the level of content or argument, but in terms of style; i.e., don't worry if your blog contains wild variations of subject matter and logical contradictions - consistency is not the same as identity - just ensure it maintains a certain look and feel and a certain level of intensity [3]. 

2. Be Insistent

 

Not on one's rightness - as Nietzsche said, it is nobler to declare oneself mistaken than to insist on being right (especially when one is right) - but insistent like the waves on the rocks; i.e., completely indifferent to the morality of your actions, but all the time shaping the coastline.    

 

3. Be Persistent

 

Just keep writing and keep publishing posts even when it is difficult, or tiring, or boring to do so - even when other people encourage you to stop. Persistence is a perverse virtue that pushes one beyond what others regard as normal or usual or even healthy; it's continuing to dig even when you're in a hole.   

 

Notes

[1] Funnily enough, this is the same advice that is given to gender diverse children who believe themselves to be born in the wrong bodies and wish to transition to a gender identity other than the one assigned at birth: be insistent, persistent and consistent and you just might persuade your parents and the health care professionals dealing with your case that you are genuinely transgender and not merely gender non-conforming or simply like dressing up and playing imaginative games.  

 

[2] Any would-be bloggers reading this - of any age (or gender) - might also like an earlier post (published in October 2021) offering untimely advice on how to develop an effective blog: click here. 

 

[3] Deleuze would probably speak at this point of forming a plane of consistency upon which concepts can arise from chaos, but I'm not Deleuze. 

 

 

For a follow-up post to this one - on establishing your blog as a plane of immanence - click here. 

Dermatillomania: On Blogging as an Itch One Simply Has to Scratch

Simon Reynolds 

blissblog

 

 

Although I don't think of myself as a blogger [1] - and although I don't regularly read any blogs - I appreciated a piece in The Guardian today by Simon Reynolds [2] which offered a nice defence of blogging as a genre ...

 

Whilst conceding that blogging is an outdated format and that many blog posts often go unread, Reynolds nevertheless celebrates the freedom that this type of text allows, enabling the writer to ramble and discuss any subject that captures their interest. 

 

He writes:

 

"Blogging, for me, is the perfect format. No restrictions when it comes to length or brevity: a post can be a considered and meticulously composed 3,000-word essay, or a spurted splat of speculation or whimsy. No rules about structure or consistency of tone." 

 

Continuing: 

 

"A blogpost can be half-baked and barely proved [...] Purely for my own pleasure, I do often go deep. But it's nearer the truth to say that some posts are outcomes of rambles across the archives of the internet, byproducts of the odd information trawled up and the lateral connections created. [...] When blogging, I can meander, take short cuts and trespass in fields where I don't belong. Because I’m not pitching an idea to a publication or presenting my credentials as an authority, I am able to tackle subjects outside my expertise."     

 

You can also discuss topics that are no longer topical: "An old record or TV programme you've stumbled on, or simply remembered  ..." For in an atemporal culture, past, present and future are collapsed and one can even be nostalgic about the latter. 

 

Reynolds also refers to the compulsive nature of blog writing; analogous to an excoriation disorder, or an itch one has to scratch, as he puts it. There's certainly some truth in that - as there is in the idea that long term bloggers have an obsessive character and the fanatic determination to carry on regardless; "I can’t imagine stopping blogging - even once there are just a few of us still standing."

 

I've been posting work on Torpedo the Ark for over ten years, but Reynolds has been blogging for twice as long [3], so I certainly respect him for that, knowing as I do the amount of time and effort that goes into producing content on a regular basis.

 

I also respect Reynolds for the fact that he (like me) would continue writing and publishing posts even if they had no audience at all. For amassing followers and forming some kind of community isn't what it's about; "connectivity was only ever part of the appeal".     

 

Nor is generating an income from one's work a real concern: 

 

"Freedom and doing it for free go together. I've resisted the idea of going the Substack or newsletter route. If I were to become conscious of having a subscriber base, I'd start trying to please them. And blogging should be the opposite of work." 

 

Precisely ... Well said that man!

 

 

Notes

 

[1] See 'Post 2000: From Journal to Mémoire' (4 Jan 2023), wherein I explain how I view Torpedo the Ark (it's not a blog) and myself as a writer (I'm not a blogger): click here.   

 

[2] Simon Reynolds, 'I'll never stop blogging: it's an itch I have to scratch - and I don’t care if it's an outdated format', The Guardian (26 Dec 2023): click here. All quotes in the above post are from this article. 

 

[3] Torpedo the Ark began in November 2012. Reynolds began his blogging career in 2002, having  operated a website for about six years prior to that date. He posts work today across several blogs, but his primary outlet is blissblog, the motto of which - My brain thinks blog-like - is one I wish I'd thought of.