To the grindstone…

Concentration, it gets more difficult as you get older and there’s so much out there vying for your time and attention… I genuinely feel for young / new writers today, there’s so much more than the ‘pram in the hall,’ to distract… and then there’s the writers, thanks to technology (and corporate greed) it’s never been so easy to write and self publish. Which means there’s much more vying for the vying; it sometimes seems as if everybody is writing and nobody’s reading. I was there when kindle started; I saw thousands of sales, now… not so much, and I’m a much better writer now.

Back in the 80s when I first published in a poetry magazine, it was typed, stapled, sent out, published and publicised by the same guy – and yes those heroes are still out there – but now it’s so easy to get Amazon or eBook-whatever to do it, but you pay…and then you’ve got to be social media savvy, friendly and dedicated… basically a new set of challenges.

I’m currently working on a new themed collection and a novel, which leaves very little screen time, let alone DO THE SOCIAL MEDIA TANGO, some folks are very good at it, C.E Hoffman for example, a trooper for sure, I have other friends in the arts that are definitely on it, all over it and I both envy and pity them, but it’s really nothing new. From the day dot, and definitely since the Pre-Raphaelites, self promotion has been vital… but now there’s so much, and it takes so much, is it just another distraction?

The answer has to be personal and individual, for me and my style of full immersion writing it is… if Proust were to try and get published today, or Zola…no chance. But that’s okay… perhaps we have to accept that if writing and reading are to continue – and it’s far from certain – it needs to be part of a wider media whole… Do I think that’s a shame? Do I think we risk becoming spoon fed idiots, possibly, do I think we risk missing great writing, probably…