The Digital Writer |
The writer confronts a dilemma in America. We do not have a very literate culture. Our experience as a world power will, in the end, produce a very literate culture as it did with ancient China and Europe. We are now shaking out of a long wild west sort of phase. As with everything else the literary phase of American culture will be different than previous ones.
But even now writers have a difficult time convincing themselves that what they do is real. That sitting at a desk and writing thoughts out or stories or writing about cats is somehow a positive function and admired by the society. The only measurement is the market. And we know writers are devalued in the market. This depressing scenario will change in the future. It's very necessary for writers to hang in there, believe in what they are doing, do it at the highest level possible, and survive.
Writers are looked at as poor, pathetic types who have "dropped- out" and are using writing as a ruse of some sort. When in truth most writers "drop-in" to their talents and see writing as a central building block to civilization.
Rejection, resentment, hatred, anger, jealosy all play a role in the writers fight to maintain some sense of purpose. These ugly forms should be taken by the writer and transformed into something "rich and strange."
The writer will be the transforming actor in the new literary system. The journalists are already on the barricades but they are limited by so much. The literary mind is the center and core of the literary system. And now the time has arrived for its place at the center.
What writers need to do is wrap their arms around the Net and say, "Friend, you are my publisher! Not Random House, the NY Times, or, even, the Podunka Argosy but, this, the new production and distribution of written material."
Obviously, most writers would be thrilled being published by Random House or the NY Times and get the paycheck, the audience, the prestige; this is obvious enough. And the reading public has its old, stubborn habits. Yet, there is still something so right and perfect when the writer says, "Net, you are my publisher."
Is the print publishing system irrelevant? No. It is not on stable ground. And as soon as its talent understands the dynamics in play there will a good deal of rocking and rolling in this industry.
And frankly I gained enormous respect over the years for the print publishing system and many people in it. And I wouldn't want books or magazines to go away soon. But, do they serve me, the writer? Do they benefit me, the writer? You notice that the print publishing system, the old literary system that will have interesting and kind books written about it, celebrates the very worst in literature, in writing, in culture. Celebrates it! That's because it lost its powers.
So, perhaps wonderful things are happening.
David
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