The Forgotten Writers' Blog

Gingerly I dip my toe into the vast sea of the internet.  The sea is calm tonight, the water not too cold.  I see tiny shell-things swirl up from between my toes.  Near the bar, a school of flying fish go by, while out on the horizon a whale sends his kingly spout into the breeze.  And what are those things closer in?  Are they sharks' fins?  Have I gone out too far?  I can feel icy water now around my calves, in the crook of my knees . . . .  can I make it back to shore--?

Of course I can.  Here I am back on the sand, amid the stink of algae, dead fish, decaying marine life.  I can walk along this beach, seeking others of my kind.  Perhaps a mermaid or two will appear.  Lift a conch shell to your ear and what do you hear but the sad song of the forgotten writer.  "I grow old, I grow old, I shall my trousers . . . "

Let me tell you a story.

Once there was a young man who grew up wanting to become a writer.  As a child, his parents read books to him every night, like The Little Engine that Could and Make Way for Ducklings.  He "read" his own books, guessing the story-line from the vividly colored panels.  He listened to his favorite programs on the radio:  "Superman" and "The Lone Ranger."  He learned continuity and dialogue from such programs, suspense, sound effects, the vast theater of the mind.  At the age of four he dictated his first "novel" to his parents, who dutifully wrote it down and preserved it for posterity.  A career was launched.

In school the boy learned the sterner pleasures of the written word and soon found his favorite medium.  At home he now read books.  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was his favorite; he read it start to finish three times.  Older, he read westerns, science fiction, hard-boiled detective novels, all the time groping his way toward (ta-dah!) SERIOUS LITERATURE.  In highschool he was allowed to read books like The Old Man and the Sea, The Grapes of Wrath, Crime and Punishment, The Catcher in the Rye.  He knew now what kind of writer he wanted to be and figured it was just a matter of time before he became one.

In college he discovered the English major and through its required courses the dreaded dragon of the CANON.  Promptly he began sawing off its limbs.  Meanwhile, he took creative writing courses and received modest encouragement from his instructors.  He wrote his stories on a typewriter and read them to his girlfriend, who thought they were wonderful.  He resolved to marry the girl, who also kissed like gang-busters and had other endearing qualities.  He began to think about graduate school.    Life was good.  The young man thought he had it all, or would soon achieve it.  What could stop him?

Well, I'll stop him, because at this point I'm wondering how many writers out there--writers of "a certain age"--share a similar story.   Many of us did go to graduate and took advanced degrees leading to teaching jobs in colleges and universities, where creative writing programs were just becoming a growth industry.  We did publish our work in various magazines, large and small, and found publishers for our novels.  We were able to hold our heads up in academia, feeling we had earned the right to call ourselves writers.  And so we trained other young people who wished to become writers, never guessing we were sowing the seeds for the generations that would render us obsolete.  We founded MFA programs and literary journals.  We organized conferences and built organizations.  We were surfing the tide, riding the wave, and then . . .

We woke up one morning to discoved the tide had gone out and we were stranded on the shore.  We could no longer find publishers for our work.  Agents weren't interested.  The literary journals were edited by young writers who didn't dig our prose, our irony, our whole approach to the art of fiction.  The publishing world was changing, we heard.  The old houses were crumbling, and in their place rose the terrible fortresses of the conglomerate.  There was something in the wind called the Internet, the e-book.  What could this portend but doom?

If you fit this profile, this blog is for you.  Even if you don't, you're welcome to come in, look around, and collect what pearls of wisdom you can find in the shells scattered along the shore.  You're also invited to submit pearls of your own discovery.  But first, a few important rules:

1.  Having read a post, please leave a brief (or if you wish lengthy) comment.  I will review all comments and figure out some way to feature them on the blog itself (I'm pretty new at this, you see.)
2.  If you have a longer offering you'd like to post, please send me an email with the text pasted within it (no attachments).  You'll find the email address in my profile, but make sure you specify in the subject line that your message concerns the blog, otherwise I'm likely to delete it as spam.  This blog will not venture into politics, religion, sex, or other really important matters, except as they happen to bear on our major concern--the problems and resources of the Forgotten Writer.

3.  Since I am now revising my next neglected novel and cramming all the writing I can into what remains of my life, I make no promises about how often this blog will appear.  It will appear when it appears--watch this space.

I will await your submissions while I scout the beach for mermaids.

Yours,
Tom (Sinbad the Sailor) Bontly