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If it's 7 p.m.
Wednesday, March 24th, 2004 07:16 pm...it must be Wednesday. Argh.
The talk last night was to a small but intense class of adults who for various inexplicable reasons want to be writers. Couple of budding novelists, an aspiring children's writer, at least one short story writer, couple of essayists. All willing to believe that writing is hard work, and willing, so far, at least, in their separate quests, to put the time in to hone their craft.
I'm wondering if we're doing new writers a favor to encourage them, in this age and time. Seems to me that fiction writing is going the way of poetry, which was once a respected and remunerative art form. Now, there's much more poetry being written than being published -- and it mostly for other practitioners of the form. Most poets publish for a by-line, if they see their work published at all. As more and more people decided that they *could* and they *would* write poetry, the form became ...devalued, and the markets were virtually smothered by an overabudence of product, most it not very good.
The same sort of thing is happening to fiction -- helped on by the internet, by the easy availability of vanity services, and, paradoxically enough, by Amazon.com. It's been a long time since most writers were able to live solely on the fruits of their labor, and as more and more people have more and more "non-traditional" avenues open to them to achieve their Big Dream of being a writer, the market is being flooded, and it's becoming too hard for readers to find the good stuff (by which I mean the stuff that they want to read) in the flood. It's going to be ...interesting... to see how it all plays out, I suppose. Though not exactly comfortable or enjoyable.
So, anyway, came home from the talk, vibrated until enough of the performance high had boiled off to make sleep seem possible, went to bed too late and got up too early, speeding thereby to Orono for a book signing.
It was a small but elegant signing. Holly Phillips, the bookstore event manager, was perfectly charming; lots of our books were on hand, and we even signed a couple, along with a set of well-worn first edition Del Reys. Jim Hetley stopped by -- always a pleasure to see Jim -- and we all parted satisfied.
Driving south, Steve and I realized that we were both 'waaaay too tired, so we elected to go home and have a nap instead of continuing on to Augusta and the printer. Tomorrow, weather permitting.
...and now I need to do some writing.
Sharon
The talk last night was to a small but intense class of adults who for various inexplicable reasons want to be writers. Couple of budding novelists, an aspiring children's writer, at least one short story writer, couple of essayists. All willing to believe that writing is hard work, and willing, so far, at least, in their separate quests, to put the time in to hone their craft.
I'm wondering if we're doing new writers a favor to encourage them, in this age and time. Seems to me that fiction writing is going the way of poetry, which was once a respected and remunerative art form. Now, there's much more poetry being written than being published -- and it mostly for other practitioners of the form. Most poets publish for a by-line, if they see their work published at all. As more and more people decided that they *could* and they *would* write poetry, the form became ...devalued, and the markets were virtually smothered by an overabudence of product, most it not very good.
The same sort of thing is happening to fiction -- helped on by the internet, by the easy availability of vanity services, and, paradoxically enough, by Amazon.com. It's been a long time since most writers were able to live solely on the fruits of their labor, and as more and more people have more and more "non-traditional" avenues open to them to achieve their Big Dream of being a writer, the market is being flooded, and it's becoming too hard for readers to find the good stuff (by which I mean the stuff that they want to read) in the flood. It's going to be ...interesting... to see how it all plays out, I suppose. Though not exactly comfortable or enjoyable.
So, anyway, came home from the talk, vibrated until enough of the performance high had boiled off to make sleep seem possible, went to bed too late and got up too early, speeding thereby to Orono for a book signing.
It was a small but elegant signing. Holly Phillips, the bookstore event manager, was perfectly charming; lots of our books were on hand, and we even signed a couple, along with a set of well-worn first edition Del Reys. Jim Hetley stopped by -- always a pleasure to see Jim -- and we all parted satisfied.
Driving south, Steve and I realized that we were both 'waaaay too tired, so we elected to go home and have a nap instead of continuing on to Augusta and the printer. Tomorrow, weather permitting.
...and now I need to do some writing.
Sharon
