Recently in Writing Category
Gone are the days when an author with something important to say struggled financially to have his work printed at a local printing press, and then a further emotional and strategic struggle to place his work where people might read it, like local bookshops, coffee houses, libraries, lodges, union halls, schools, churches, etc. In the last two decades self publishing has not only hit an all time high but has gotten much easier. The Internet and world wide web have played a primary role in this new accessibility to literally millions of readers across the planet with a mere click of a computer keyboard.
For most of the 20th century self publishing had a stigma attached to it that was hard to overcome. Those budding authors who paid to have someone publish their literary work were seen as losers who weren't even worthy to be read except by family and a few close friends. The publishing houses made sure that this stigma was perpetuated ad infinitum to protect their own financial interests. As these publishing houses merged into a handful of really big publishing concerns owned by multi-national financial corporations, getting one's literary work out to a large number of readers became nearly impossible.
One bit of information these big publishers held closely to their chest was the fact that most all of the great literature and documents published in this country from its founding through most of the 1800's was done privately. From Ben Franklin to Edgar Allen Poe they first published their literary works by their own hand or paid someone else to do it. During this era there wasn't any stigma involved in self publishing one's book, essay collection or pamphlet. In fact it was considered more of a rite of literary passage and an expectation from the community of readers. Can you imagine a big corporate publisher telling Thomas Paine that his political tract The Rights of Man wasn't financially or culturally feasible to be published?
The few mega publishing houses we have today publish books based first and foremost on a financial bottom line, secondly how least offensive and controversial that book may be, and thirdly what cultural and literary value the work has for the community of readers. There are thousands of examples of this kind of publishing that can be found in large chain bookshops, malls, airports, and grocery stores. Any serious reader who picks up one of these corporate literary offerings can tell immediately that it was published to make a fast buck; to be read once and tossed aside! On the other hand I don't want people to get the idea that just because a book, poem or essay is self published it is somehow better than the stuff that is spewed out of the corporate publishing houses.
In the old days of the private back room, hand cranked lithograph press there were pamphleteers and poets who had no business picking up a pen to write, let alone publish the result. The Internet today has magnified this situation fifty million times. It seems that in today's highly accessible, global free press everybody sees them self as an Ernest Hemingway; whether they are a pimply-faced teen with zero life experience, an illiterate slob whose past time is drinking Coors Lite beer on the weekends, or a racist skin-head who fantasizes killing ethnic minorities. If you are a serious and discerning reader, and take the time and effort and combine this with a little luck, you will find some of the most incredible, illuminating and brilliant self published writing in the world today.
If it wasn't for the freedom of the Internet and competent, self published writers, we would all still be held captive to the safe, bland, corporate literary mush that passes as literature. Because of the explosive accessibility of the Internet those previous budding authors with something truly important to say and creative ways of expressing it, can now be read by millions across the planet without corporate greed and banality standing in the way. It truly is a new era for self publishing as well as for the written word. And the remarkable thing about this new era is the financial cost. Anybody can create a free web site and publish their writing for millions to see just for the cost of an Internet connection. How extraordinary!
About seven months ago I read an article online at the Portland Independent Media Center web site, which talked about a local theme here in Portland, Oregon that was very dear to my heart. I couldn't wait to dive into the meat of the matter to see what if any new facts, ideas or interpretations that might be forth coming. It was a long article so I made myself a nice cup of tea and got right down to business. After the initial reading of the opening paragraph I sat at my computer screen in stunned silence. I plodded through the paragraph exactly six more times. It turned into an exhaustive experience. It was so exhausting that I decided that walking through quick sand with a full field pack would be preferable to finishing the article.
Needless to say I never got beyond the opening paragraph. After a total of seven readings of the author's opening effort I was still unsure what he wanted to say on the subject as well as where he might be headed, which are two very critical pieces in any opening statement. Another matter that abruptly brought my interest to a screeching halt was the length of the paragraph. I counted eight-hundred, twenty-two words that had more the appearance of a short essay than a paragraph. I found sixty-seven misspellings, virtually no capitalizations where needed but a plethora of capitalized sentences, many run-on sentences, an embarrassing amount of double negatives, and acronyms that weren't immediately explained or even foot-noted. The end result was a piece of very illogically constructed, sloppy and meaningless writing.
I sent an email to the author of this article and very diplomatically pointed out my concerns about his writing. I expressed that he indeed missed a great opportunity, not only of getting his particular interpretation on the subject at hand to many readers, but also of possibly winning some converts to his way of thinking. He returned my email with a long rambling, reactionary response that made even less sense than his article I had critiqued. His email was a four page mightmare of unruly and choppy grammatical indiscretions. It took a couple of readings before I could glean two of the points he was trying to make. There seemed to be a third point somewhere in the chaos of textual vomit but unfortunately I couldn't figure out what it was. The author of this email hinted at chronic under-employment and poverty which was the fault of people like myself who "are incapable of seeing the world outside the box of capitalist rules."
He accused me of being a "puppet of the mainstream media and everything it stands for." He also found disfavor with the rules of grammer "as a capitalist mind game to keep anarchists and other solidarity workers chained to the wheel of poverty." He further concurred that "in order for workers to be fully liberated they must liberate themselves from the rules of grammar--a capitalist tool." It almost seemed as if he delighted in his anarchistic philosophy of grammar where all the normative rules of communication are tossed out the window. What this person is not owning up to is the fact that his beloved anarchist hero, Rudolf Rocker, who he sited many times in his email, exercised the principles of not only good grammar but overall excellent communication skills with others. Read any of the writings of Rudolf Rocker and you will be provided a scrumptious feast of really good writing, regardless where you stand on the political philosophy of Anarcho-syndicalism.
Progressive writing, or for that matter any writing, is an art form that needs to be developed over time and cared for like a small infant child. Progressive writing, more so than any other form of writing, needs to be rigidly focused on the act of communicating an idea to the audience in a coherent and literate fashion. There are many examples of what I am talking about here. Pick up a book or essay by Thoreau, Lenin, Ghandi, or King, and you will experience writing that is not only beautiful but well constructed. This is why the ideas of these great individuals spread like a wild fire across the globe: they were well written. A teacher I had in 12th grade advanced literature told the class that when we have mastered the rules of good writing then we can break those rules if needed to get a point across. Her examples were T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, William Faulkner, and James Joyce.
I would like to say that my encounter with this anarchist's attempt at writing was an exception to the rule but I can't. It was painfully obvious that the writer had never learned the basic fundamentals of good writing. And too many times, up until recently in fact, when I have attempted to read essays, investigative writings or tracts on Portland Independent Media Center web site, I have encountered writing that is often so sloppy I can't bring myself to finish it. The people behind this kind of slop probably view themselves as cutting edge revolutionaries, investigative journalists and the vanguard of an intellectual-political-cultural elite. Fine! I will let them suffer their delusion while the rest of us progressives who know better, will accept common standards of communication and actually enjoy talking with one another and writing thought provoking articles that others can understand and enjoy reading.
The other day I received an email from an ardent admirer of my online column. She happens to live in Providence, Rhode Island, and knows me from a time during the mid-1990's when we both posted comments on a world wide web discussion group. She was quite frustrated with me saying: "I love your writing but there's not enough of it-please write more." I was not too pleased with her email and told her so, while trying not to dampen her enthusiasm for my new column. (I have so very few ardent admirers that I can't afford to lose any.) I hope I was successful with her. Only time will tell.
This email brought up an important issue with me about my writing, or I should say my lack of writing. I have too many other things in my life to feel guilty about and I don't need my lack of productive writing to be one of them, especially when ardent fans remind me of this. It may sound silly to my readers, considering the fact that I am not famous or even well known, but comments like the one she made, puts a lot of pressure on me and I end up over thinking the issue and actually produce less.
When I responded to this woman I offered her six reasons (she later said the reasons sounded more like rationalizations...) why my writing output was probably so sparse. I told her that the great bulk of writers in the Internet blogosphere are there to get attention, to show off or to impress others, to compensate for weaknesses or frustrations, to try to secure oneupmanship over another person, to try to impose their will or ideas over others, and lastly, as an outlet for frustration or tension or hostility. These six reasons, by no means discrete or inclusive, are personal reasons.
Writing of this type pervades the Internet like so much emotional vomit. It tends to be intellectually impotent, lacking maturity, and filled with unnecessary fluff. It is easy to spot this kind of writing because it usually rambles, goes off on all sorts of tangents, is filled with much irrelevancy, and often with much misplaced emotion. There is often considerable hyperbole, overreaction, and confusion in thinking something through. The personality of this type of writer, not the outcome, is what appears to be at stake. There is rarely a harmonious conclusion or resolution to such writing; usually it just stops. This type of writing becomes a form of play, sometimes very aggressive play. A person writing from any of these six motivations may not be seeking a higher road to truth about themselves or the world, or writing for writing's sake, or to achieve perfection of an art form.
My writing is an exercise to discover hidden truths about myself, others and the world at large. A good example of this was my short story, "Konstantin's Birthday," posted earlier on this column. The motivation behind this story was to force myself to become better acquainted with the suffering that happened during Nazi Germany's airborne assault on the island of Crete during World War Two. And it is primarily for this reason only that I am incapable of any sort of hack writing that is so prevalent on the world wide web today. The few words that I do write I want to count for something substantial and offer others something to chew on intellectually and cogitate upon during their quiet hours.
I would like to end this essay by stating that good and endearing writing always has purpose. At the core of my personal essays or stories is the supposition that there is a certain unity to human experience. As the great essayist, Michel de Montaigne said: "Every man has within himself the entire human condition." I would add that how a writer manifests that human condition, or simply overlooks it in favor of the trivial and mundane, shows whether they are a moron or someone struggling to find truth within themselves, others or the world.
