Rather than start a new blog, as was my intention, I've decided to dust down and resuscitate an old one that I think will serve my purposes well. It's got the added advantage of containing lots of things I've blogged about in the past, in various places, gathered together as a kind of archive. However, rather than dwell on past blog posts too much, this is a new beginning for me, and a way to communicate to an audience and work through some of my thoughts and ideas about my writing and research. It's also a place for me to continue to develop my evolving sense of who I am as a writer and critic, so while I have blogged about comics primarily, I'm planning to dive into the other areas I'm interested in too, including literature, film, TV and music.
I was recently moved by something Mark Rylance said on the South Bank Show. I can't profess to be a fan of his acting, only because I haven't seen anything he's been in (an omission I'll definitely be rectifying soon). He was talking about the single most important piece of advice for new actors, and he distilled it into three words - "You are enough". He says that the fear and self-doubt that actors feel is borne of the worry that they will not measure up, when in fact the opposite is true -- it's often enough that the actor is on stage and performing, while an audience is willing them on the give a good performance.
I think this applies to all manner of artistic processes and life in general, whether it's writing or being the best person we can be generally. Perhaps we should all try to banish self-doubt as best we can and simply aim to be "enough". I think this blog is my attempt to live by this philosophy a little more by turning up here to write, think and communicate more.
