We got it a bit tough

I've mentioned a few times before my firm belief that, had I been writing during the 40s, 50s and 60s, the publishing world as well as the general public would be far more receptive to my fiction, and I would probably have a greater chance of success, success for me meaning the fiscal ability to write full-time, or at least to know I have a dedicated audience to write for.

I love living in this age, but unfortunately, it's also the age where 1 in 4 adults have not read a book in the past year. It's also the age where most younger readers are only readers when the new Harry Potter comes out, and once they reach the last line, it's back to TV, videogames and the internet. It's the age where scarcely anyone wants a beautifully-crafted line they can pause on and consider, preferring their stories "never slow down". They want readable movie trailers.

Recently I heard the teacher and author Sheila Finch speak at a nearby library. She made the statement that every generation likely assumes it's living in the worst time to write. While that's probably true, I still think we have it the worst, and if things progress in the same pattern, any writer in the generation succeeding ours will find their voices echoing even further over the sea of indifference, skipping unheard through the heads of people who "can't make time for reading" in the hectic schedule of American Idol reruns.

There are many great authors who, frankly, would have quite a tough time finding a virgin audience these days. In the late 60s, it was a cool, socially revolutionary thing to read Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five. College students would walk around campus with used copies in their back pockets. Jack Kerouac's work helped ignite the beat movement. You'd never see people reacting to a book like that today, I'm sorry, because nowadays that back-pocket space is reserved for wallets or iPods.

Back then, publishers, agents, and the general public were far braver and more receptive to new material, and publications and presses abounded as a result of it. Much of these publications and presses, of course, have since folded.

In the strengthening blizzard of frenetic media and dynamic forms of entertainment and communication, the novel's power has been somewhat lost in the shuffle. The written word will never die, but it has become something to pass the time on an airplane, or a method of falling asleep. Proposed "tenchological revamps" of the format, such as Sony's portable e-Reader that's being pitched as the iPod of books, don't offer much excitement or hope to me because it's still reading. And reading is the problem. Reading is what turns the cobwebbed minds of many of these people away.

The written word holds vast amounts of power within its ancient simplicity. The author needs no approval of a studio, no $200 million budget, no crew, no producer, no special effects. Hell, you can make anything with a pencil and the back of a receipt.

Hopefully more people of our generation will come to realize that.