It's all about the writing...

or is it?

"Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, and then for a few close friends, and then for money."
Moliere

I had a friend once, who told me that she was going to write the next great american novel. She fancied herself to be the next Hemingway. She had just pursued a graduate degree at Harvard for a field unrelated to writing. When she discovered that she actually hated her chosen field of study, she decided that she would be a writer instead. Yet the one thing lacking was, she actually didn't love writing either. It ended up being merely an excuse to stall the less than glamorous task of seeking employment. So she took a year off and wrote things she refused to share with the rest of the world. Hemingway remained safe from her threat of competition. She never did write any novel, much less THE great american novel.

Can one just decide to be the next Hemingway?

There are some who believe the answer is yes. All it takes is a good agent or advertising. You too can become famous if you merely market yourself well. Well I don't believe it. There is a huge fundamental difference between being a good writer and being a salesman. Maybe I am naive. Maybe I am clinging onto the romantic notion that a good writer has something of worth to say regardless of how good of a marketing strategy they employ. The writing itself is the essential piece, not the desire for fame or fortune.

I dare say that Hemingway did not set out to be Hemingway. Most writers and artists do not know their future. There are a great number of creators of art or literature who were not popular in their time. They wrote or painted for the passion of it. Van Gogh is a prominent example of this. Considered to be a flop in his time, he had no inkling of the immense popularity of his works after his death. Van Gogh didn't paint for fortune or fame. He painted because he had raw passion and a fierce desire to do so.

Again, I am most likely holding dear to a romantic ideal of writing which is not the norm nowadays and especially with our technological advances which enables all of us to claim to be "writers" and "artists."

I am currently reading a book entitled, "The Cult of the Amateur: How today's internet is killing our future" by Andrew Keen. It is an excellent commentary about how far we are going as a society to demolish any standards of excellence in the arts. Writing is but one example. In today's world, anyone can be an "expert" at virtually anything. Joe Schmo down the street who who holds no degrees, reads no books, and lives in his mother's basement, can suddenly be an expert of anything from raising orchids to writing about global warming. Wikipedia is one site which makes us all experts of anything we choose. Despite the lack of credibility, thousands of people still flock to the site for a daily dose of misinformation.

Take a look at television for yet another example of how the public is constantly bombarded with the facade of the expert. The ads for the cholesterol lowering drug, Lipitor, come immediately to mind with the ad campaign featuring a Dr. Jarvik to promote the product. The truth of the matter finally came out that although he has a medical degree, Dr. Jarvik is not a cardiologist and is not licensed to practice medicine. The ad was subsequently taken off the air when this little fact was discovered.

I fear for the art of writing as well. There are millions of blogs out there and the number is steadily growing. It seems everybody and their grandmother writes a blog. As Andrew Keen points out: "If we keep up this pace, there will be over five hundred million blogs by 2010, collectively corrupting and confusing popular opinion about everything from politics, to commerce, to arts and culture. Blogs have become so dizzyingly infinite that they've undermined our sense of what is true and what is false, what is real and what is imaginary." It seems hypocritical of me to quote this as I am writing this for my blog. Yet you just try to be a writer without a blog nowadays. Blogs have become a permanent part of the writing world for good or for bad. I personally love blogging. It is a way to reach people who you would have never had an opportunity to form a connection with before. Yet as much as I do love this platform for writing, I am all the more keenly aware of the dangers and pitfalls as well.

One only has to peruse the blogosphere for some minutes to find that most of it is dreadful schlock. The term of "writer" has been so blasphemed that it holds no meaning anymore. Andrew Keen foretells of T.H. Huxley's "Infinite Monkey Theorem" to be coming true: "Huxley's theory says that if you provide infinite monkeys with infinite typewriters, some monkey somewhere will eventually create a masterpiece-a play by Shakespeare, a Platonic dialogue, or an economic treatise by Adam Smith." And today's technology has provided the monkey's with web 2.0 capabilities. Imagine the lasting effects of such a universe of low to zero standards for truth or quality. We are already there.

We have become a nation of a People magazine mentality.

Where are the good writers or journalists? How can one even find them amongst all the varied and assorted rubbish which litters the internet? What has happened to passion and a love for the art of writing? Are we to all be drowned out by the biggest mouths, the most successful schmoozers, and successful marketers of carefully crafted narcissism? Does anyone care anymore about any sort of quality control? Do we truly enjoy being herded like cattle to the next blog, the next website, touted as being "popular" by the number of hits or mindless comments to some self serving glutton?

I was reminded of how bad things are becoming when I saw a blogger recently who was actually bribing people for comments with the offer of a prize of a gift card. Is this what "writing" has evolved into? Forget about hard work or passion. It isn't about the writing at all don't you know? It is about all the hundreds of "friends" you can acquire on myspace or the number of times people link to you. Who needs good writing? Talent and hard work is secondary to obtaining a large enough mirror for people to repeat how wonderful you are. It isn't how well you write that matters it is who you know and how well you can play the game.

I am greatly disheartened by this state of affairs. In order to keep doing what I love to do I must put horse blinders on and shut out most of the world. In my quiet place I will write with reverence and a simple heart. Writing has and always will be my first love. No matter if the monkeys soon control the world, I will hold onto my pen and paper for dear life. I will write. It is who I am and what I do regardless and despite the lack of money or fame or anything else.

I am a writer.

And so I write...