Adventure & Exploration

I love writing and creative writing that requires you to delve deep into your heart, and express yourself can be the most fulfilling experience.

However, in light of today’s publishing environment (which thankfully is changing), being a writer is not enough. You need an agent and a publisher and maybe when you are first starting out or building your portfolio and establishing your credentials, you are looking first for work. It gives you confidence. It makes you know that people care about what you can do and value it. That’s important.

So you take a job or you freelance and you get your written word out there. But then the bill man comes a knocking. You got to pay your rent, your car bill, your telephone, your Internet, your food, and your student loan. While having your name in the local newspaper makes your heart happy, it is not even close to putting a sandwich in your mouth. So what next? You do not want to give up writing, so you take a freelance gig. It turns into another one and another one. All of a sudden you land a book gig. Wow! You are in the big leagues.

That is when you got to put the brakes on. Stop! Most likely, you are not in the big leagues no matter how much you want it to be. Most likely you have been offered a ghostwriting gig by someone (usually wealthy, older and cannot hold a pen) to write their story, whether is a personal journey or something other. If the person is honest, he or she will realize that crediting you for your work is the right way to go. But most however do not and may recant on their word.

So what happens next? You put your heart and soul into a fantastic piece of literature that is now being paraded on book shelves. Terrific, isn’t it? But unfortunately it does not bear your name not even a trace and instead has a whole bunch of people now credited on it (sisters, wives, daughters, brothers, ex-wives – you get the drift) who cannot tell the difference between a metaphor and an adverb. It is so shocking that you cannot possibly imagine it to be true. You recoil in horror.

You realize how deeply corrupt the world of publishing has become and how thick the roots sink, where a person can “buy” writing and proclaim it as their own, a practice known as “ghostwriting” where actually they come across as a knowledgeable, erudite, and most disturbing – creative writer, while you languish unknown and unappreciated. If you question, people instantly bark at you like Rottweilers saying immediately, “But you had an opportunity to write a book!” Like it was the most amazing gift from the Gods that you should squirm and grovel on the floor for your ability.

What is that? The author, the writer, the muse, the creative artist – is actually PUNISHED and told to be thankful for getting the few scraps they do.

Hmmm….

And we say we have evolved as a country? As people? When such practices exist, I say we need to look at that again.