The Death of Writing and Writers

A recent article in THE GUARDIAN told the story of two award winning best selling writers who have fallen on hard times. To be truthful this is a trend throughout the industry. To be trendy we tend to ignore the economy and its realities as long as we still have our shiny baubles to drool over.

At the heart of the article is the change in the publishing business; the net with a ton of free content and self-publishing. The stature many writers thought themselves to have has eroded. Writers are no longer celebrities; no longer considered to be the cornerstone of the cool lunch table.

These writers are struggling. They have awards, no money and are pissed.

True, much of what is out there is crap. True, much of the self-published world is actually birdcage liner. But then again there are publishers who specialize in bird cage liners because their dumb downed maturity challenged readership likes what they publish.

So, what are they to do? Do what the rest of us do. Keep to your craft; tune out the riff raff and get a second job. It will all turn over again when these writers get together and stop voting in politicians who cater to the clueless and lazy; fill schools with agendas that have nothing to do with learning but everything to do with constituency.

How about writing about that? How about mounting a campaign to combat the illiteracy of those who can read?

Nothing is ever over until you lie down and make it so.