The Digital Writer |
All free people love an alternative to monstrous systems. And the print publishing system, for all its good and good people, is a monstrous system where the writer is simply another worker-bee in the process of making honey for others in the marketplace. Therefore, the literary values of the writer are nugatory. It reminds me of conversations I've had with people in the medical profession who complain that they work in a terrible system that's trying to monetize the art of healing, making the healer a cog in the money-making machine. Who can trust institutions based on these values?
This is one reason alternatives arise and why they often take root. In the publishing system it's even more striking because the writer, the core of publishing, can do so much on the digital publishing system. The doctor, cut away from the system is rather helpless without all the expensive testing and equipment.
By no means is the print publishing system dead. But the literary type looks into the soul of things and at that point pronounces it dead or, hardly alive. It's a machine that simply takes generations of writers and their written work and pushes it through the gears, robbing both the writer and reader of the great satisfactions that can be had by books, reading, literature, thought, and so forth. Writers con themselves into believing they are not "corporate employees" but the truth of the matter is that they are when they hand in their assignments to the corporate entity that is going to "pay" them something for the effort. This is not the fault of those who work for publishers or, even, manage them. It is the fault of the system and what happens when it gets too big, too successful. It's no different than car manufacturing or any other industry. It can't afford risks, the bottom-line rules, the market dictates, the PR system is set in motion to make what is bad, good. The system is fully corrupt and yet it still wants our words.
One of the most uplifting words a free person can hear is, "renovation!"
Do not destroy, do not bring down but take all the significant things, shake them out, and make them new.
There is a lot of intelligence and talent on the Net, in and out of the blogging world. The blogging world is a sancrosant one, apparently. And, there are a lot of exciting things going on as writers publish directly to the Net. The Net as the Publisher is a fine concept and one we've promoted since '96.
The Net, however, poses this one problem. Most good writing is deliberative. It is not executed well in real-time. Even journalism has a few hours to try and rectify itself. So, in effect, writers are foolishly, slavishly giving in to the compression of time that marks the psychological experience of our era. It's a lot better, in my humble opinion, to view the Net as a place where writing can evolve, as a writer posts, adds, corrects, subtracts, revises, etc. through time, a single piece of writing. That seems a far better use for the medium.
As I said in the newsletter, we are going to reach the absurd point of every writer having exactly one reader, and that reader could very well be another writer. The vast majority of common readers are not on the Net to read. So, we use the space well. Respect the space and don't take it for granted. Speak the truth. One of the gaping holes in American culture is the pursuit of truth. Everyone from the shoeshine guy to the so-called intellectual is in a mad pursuit for power. This has created one of the most disturbing cultures in history but regardless. The space we make respects truth and those items that can't be easily bought and sold in the marketplace.
It is the strange, naive view that can work on a medium such as this, although the window seems to shut down each passing year.
David