I'm in danger of becoming a blog-whiner, one of my least favorite species. Truly. When I read a blog, I don't want to read about somebody whining over their day or apologizing for neglecting the blogosphere. Yet here I am preparing to whine, yet again, about the social media flood and its stagnation-inducing effect on my writing. Blogs and book giveaways and raffles and memes and e-book releases and cover reveals. I feel like such a dinosaur. I don't have time for that stuff. I just want to write, dammit.And if I should ever manage to get an agent or a publisher interested in my stuff, God forbid they wander over to this whiney rant born of a sad little neglected blog. "What do we want with her?" they may say. "All she wants to do is write. Writers are a dime a dozen. We don't need more writers. We need marketers." That's the message I'm getting these days.
As for self-publishing in the brave new world of the digital age, how is it any better than the old version of self-publishing? You have to fork over a bundle of money (it's a bundle by my standards) for editors and cover art and all those important extras that will make you competitive. I don't see that as much of an improvement over the days of vanity presses. Yes, you control it, but you're still paying for it.
We human beings are driven to tell stories, I guess. Tell them and write them. But selling them? That's a different animal. The days of the tribal storyteller as a combination entertainer and shaman are gone. Money has changed the storyteller's role forever. Look at Hollywood. How can the spirit that is meant to reflect on the deeper elements of human existence survive in the competitive commercial world? Perhaps that is why so many artists end up screwed up, addicted, depressed, lost. We're turning shamans into slaves, trained monkeys and prostitutes.
Oh, how very dark I'm being tonight!
Maybe I should be rejoicing in the notion that the human race is embracing its literary drive. Maybe it's a good thing, everyone pouring their thoughts into words, this massive output of creative energy. Afterall, some terrific creative work continues to emerge from all of this. Have we human beings in the digital age become our own version of the old fable about the monkeys typing Shakespeare?
