Marathons and Moving Parts

On long-distance writing

In my early forties, I ran my first and only marathon. I managed 4:04, and was mildly annoyed by not cracking four hours - but not sufficiently so to enter any more races. Not least because, soon after that. I began work on Feminism Against Progress, which turned out to have a number of parallels with marathon training.

Marathon preparations are all-consuming. You spend hours a week, just training, and because you have to build up the stamina gradually, this commitment stretches across multiple months. Sticking to it requires willpower, and saying ‘no’ to other things. Unless you’re already freakisly fit and supplied with excessive animal spirits, it’s also so draining that it leaves little for other obligations. Sunday long runs left me so tired sometimes I would be pretty much unable to do anything else for the rest of the day, to the exasperation of my husband and (then) toddler.

It turned out that many comparable principles apply to book-writing. It’s a long-term commitment. Sometimes you feel like giving up, or that you’ll never get there. It’s also all-consuming in a comparable way, albeit less physically so: the arguments would fill up my head, and make me infuriatingly absent-minded and prone to leaving doors unlocked and the oven on. (This is not cute or charming when it keeps happening). In short, it consumed a huge amount of mental energy and willpower, to the point where sometimes the competition with family life felt zero-sum.

My family was very patient with me during both the marathon and the book, for which I’m eternally grateful. But it was also clear, having done both, that going forward I’d have to choose. So I did: five years on, the reason I haven’t run any more marathons is that while I like running, I love writing books, and I would not be able to do both at marathon distance without dropping literally all my other obligations. Which I don’t want to do.

Life is full of tradeoffs. These days I run fewer miles, with a dog for company. And as most of you know, I’m working on a second book: The King and the Swarm. Composing it has been quite different to the Feminism Against Progress: that was a sequential argument, like stringing beads on a wire or perhaps a violin concerto. This one is more like a helix, or maybe a fugue. It’s about information revolutions, and there have been several of these so the material twists around itself and sets off unexpected resonances.

I’m happy with the way it’s coming together. But at almost 10 chapters in, there are now more moving parts in play than can easily be set down for a day here and there, without pieces getting lost. By “moving parts” I mean the number of concurrent themes in a piece of written work. As a rule of thumb, I find unless it’s in a very dense register a 1,200 word piece has about 2, a 2,000-word piece has 3, a 5,000 word paper has 5-6, and a book has lots.

The difference between making an argument, and making an argument that sings, is keeping all the moving parts in mind so you can bring out harmonics as you go along. If you do this well, it creates space for something extra, that (sorry if this sounds mad) comes from beyond whatever little insight I might have on my own. And The King and the Swarm has reached the point, more than three-quarters of the way in, where it’s time to draw those parts together - and that means I need to think about as little else as possible, for a while. So I’ve decided to set down Substack, at least partially, for a few weeks while I gather those threads together.

I’ve been wondering how best to do this, while honouring the support of my many wonderful readers here, and here’s what I propose:

For the next 12 weeks, after this one, I’ll post just for my paying subscribers. What I propose to share is a chapter-by-chapter preview of The King and the Swarm. Every week I’ll post, summarising a book chapter, and once or twice a month I’ll host an exclusive supporters-only salon, on the themes raised in the newsletter - or anything else you want to discuss. If I’m feeling brave enough I might even do these as a livestream. I’ve never tried going live on Substack before but it seems like it might be fun? Would it be fun? Only one way to find out!

Anyway, if you want to come along for this end-of-marathon last, exhausted sprint, I’ll be grateful as ever for your interest, support, and feedback. If you aren’t currently a paid subscriber, but fancy egging me on to go live on Substack, now’s your moment. If you’d rather point a limited ‘Stack budget elsewhere for now, no worries: just write to me by replying to this email for a refund or subscription pause, or unsubscribe the usual way. No hard feelings! But I hope you do come along for the ride. I owe more than any of you can imagine to the community around this newsletter, and appreciate every one of you.

So with this in mind, it’s sprint finish time. Wish me luck! For those of you who are sticking around, stay tuned for KATS salon, week 1, next weekend, where I will make the condensed version of my case that the Singularity already happened. Meanwhile wish me luck with chapter 9 , in which the 17th-century end of absolute monarchy maybe (or maybe not?) goes into reverse…