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Written by nacho
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The past few Margin pieces have been thought out, constructive articles
on the strange and horrible world of writing. I was planning to write
something upbeat and hopeful this time around, but the headless ghost
of Sir Henry de la Dunwich, who haunts my every waking moment, told me
it was time for an unstructured rant. What do I hate about writers?
It's easy. It reflects what I hate about people. People don't educate
themselves anymore. Oh, a few may read what Oprah suggests, but that's
about it.
So people are stupid, we all know that. Here's a golden rule for the
wannabe writers out there: You can't write if you don't read.
Let's take the controversial adventures of Nacho Sasha. Do you
know how many comments I get from friends and strangers asking if I
really did whatever stupid things I decided to write about a half hour
before the posting deadline? People can't see the line between truth
and fiction. I've actually lost long time friends over certain
articles. I can't believe you killed all those people, man! You're
going to get in trouble! I can't associate with someone who hangs out
with bin Laden. Seriously, folks, I've heard that sort of stuff.
Why can't people tell the difference?
In Literary Whores,
I discussed the definition of a bestselling book in terms of number of
copies sold. Think about the deeper horror that lies under those
unmasked sales figures. If a bestseller equals 20,000 copies sold, and
a healthy percentage of those copies are sitting on a shelf or in a
warehouse somewhere, what's that say about our culture? If big man
Stephen King can only expect 50,000 copies of his work to sell, and if
even J.K. Rowling, who is reprinted in almost every nation on Earth,
and in a few dead languages, can only expect to sell a few hundred
thousand copies, what's that telling us? 20,000 out of hundreds of
millions? 500,000 out of billions?
Reading a book is a commitment. I had an argument with one of my
sources about this, and she said that the literary profession is highly
competitive - new books coming out all the time, tens of thousands of
books in print, no wonder only a few thousand of each sell, so maybe
I'm setting my standards too high in thinking that the world's leading
nation should be reading more. Either way, the competition argument
doesn't hold water for me. There are hundreds of TV channels, all of
them with programs running 24/7, and the benchmark of success is
measured in millions of viewers. If there can be numbers in the
millions for each one of an incalculable amount of programs running on
several different mediums, and still enough room to expect in excess of
$10 billion in video and DVD sales per year, then why isn't the same
true for books?
The problem is something many of us lack in these soulless years: The
rare combination of patience and comprehension. When you pick up a
book, you have to work to be part of the story. You have to pay
attention and think about it. Hell, most people can't even do that for
movies. "No, he said he was his brother five minutes ago, darling."
There are no visual effects to grab you. It's you and the words, and
you have to understand subtlety and that the story may take you a few
days to get through in this format. It'll be a 98 minute movie in the
fall, don't worry.
We're lonely creatures in the modern world, yes? Sad souls struggling
to get home... How many of you turn on the TV as soon as you get back to
your empty one bedroom apartments? Or a computer game, maybe?
Something, anything that breaks up the goddamned silence. Why sit in
that silence and read when you have Dish Network, a selection of new
video games and a loud stereo? Silence is the enemy, it makes you think
of what you may have achieved if you weren't working eight days a week
to pay for your miserable, credit card life. So there, if you can't sit
down and comfortably read a book in silence, then you are truly amongst
the unenlightened and you need to switch jobs.
America is not a literate society. Even if you don't agree with what
I've said above, you have to agree with that statement. One thing's for
sure, we certainly fall behind the other uppity-up nations run by fat
white men. We don't read, we don't pay attention, we don't comprehend
and we want everything packaged in a small container and simplified as
much as possible. Throw in a healthy dose of not giving a good goddamn
about anything that happens outside of the Peoria City Limits, and you
get 280 million automatons. That's what we do best. It's not a 21st
Century thing. It's not a Gen X thing. We've always been automatons
and, before that, we were always farmers and, before that, we were
always indentured servants and weird fur-trading frontiersmen. The
American Revolution may have been run by shady Masonic landowners with
slaves and money to burn, but it happened because the ordinary Joes and
Janes were at the end of their wick. If we're going to be ruled by
rich, white pederasts then, please, God, let it be the ones we have at
home and not some absentee limey. That's all it was. The forced removal
of an irritant so all the common people could get the fuck back to work.
In the late 1800's, the first powerful modern literary movements in the
US were the sale of dime store true crime and Wild West chapbooks while
the rest of the world was reading Wilde, Dickens and Chekhov; a
heavenly host of authors. But none could beat the true story of
Blackhand McGraw selling by the wagonload on the streets of Boston.
Nothing's changed, a century later.
While the official American literacy rate is 97% (which, for the last
great empire on Earth, is shameful. Why not 100%, folks?), we must ask
the question: How is literacy measured? Our government (thanks to the
National Adult Literacy Survey) defines a "literate" adult as being
able to perform "Level 1" functions. Level 1 functions are defined by
"the ability to total a deposit slip, locate the time or place of a
meeting on a form, identify a piece of specific information in a brief
news article, or perform similar tasks." How many of the 97% literate
Americans are at Level 1 proficiency, according to the most recent
survey conducted by the US government (2002)? 23%.
Level 2 is the next step up. What's the definition of Level 2
proficiency? "Generally able to locate information in text, to make
low-level inferences using printed materials, and to integrate easily
identifiable pieces of information. Further, they demonstrate the
ability to perform quantitative tasks that involve a single operation
where the numbers are either stated or can be easily found in text. For
example, adults in this level are able to calculate the total cost of a
purchase or determine the difference in price between two items. They
can also locate a particular intersection on a street map." And how
many of the 97% are at this level? 28%.
So 51% of literate adult Americans are barely able to work their way through a newspaper article.
It doesn't surprise me that nobody reads, or that the very act of
learning from, you know, books and stuff isn't deeply ingrained in our
psyche. Hell, we're lucky if the people raising us don't burn us with
cigarettes, if they're even around.
I don't care, really. I'm a middle class white male, so the
all-consuming prejudice of this nation is no worry, and if the mindless
bastards want to die on the farm, they're more than welcome. What's it
to me? There's no use preaching against the masses. What bothers me is
the writer who doesn't read. You know the type, the casual writer. I
see it all the time, and I can actually tell from the writing.
There are a number of popular excuses, and I hear them from most of the
writers I work with. These excuses include the famous "I can do better"
routine, where the struggling writer with several dozen blank pages on
their desk is frustrated by other authors getting into print. Then
there's the sensitive drunken Friday writer - I just get oh so
depressed when I see this person, who sucks, in print while nobody will
look at my 500 page lesbian fantasy novel written in a made up
language. Woe is me!
How about the distraction excuse? I love that one. Can't read, it
distracts me from Da Grate Amerycain Novle that I be done righting!
Oh, they go on and on, and I've begun a personal crusade to stick a
fork in the eye of every writer who doesn't constantly read. (Actually,
I'm at the point where I want to stick a fork in the eye of every
writer, generally speaking. I should become an agent.) Let's look at it
in a purely business-like perspective (which is how we all should be
treating the craft of writing): To read is to study the competition.
You get companies hiring secret shoppers, you get corporate espionage,
you get bitter rivalry that often ends in gunfire and Matrix-style kung
fu battles on the floor of Wall Street. So, if anything, just read for
that purpose. Study trends, look at who's on top and who's laying eggs,
see what all the hubbub is about. This is your business, stupid.
Then there's structure; the great enemy of the writer - how to get past
act 2, assuming you can even get that far without having a meltdown.
When I read a book, I'm constantly aware of how the book is put
together. There are no trade secrets in this business. There's no
employee's manual, either. So, how's it done? Why does it sell? Easy
enough, learn to see the Matrix, Neo. You can see the patterns in the
swirl of words if you train yourself. Better still, it'll increase your
enjoyment of the story tenfold, not only because you're thinking, but
because you'll be able to appreciate the true craft of good writing
whenever it's in front of you.
Finally, read for enjoyment. It's the profession you want to get into,
right? You want the 15 literate Americans Level Three Proficient and
higher to buy your book for 59 cents at a used bookstore, right? Right.
So be
one of those readers. Everything you read expands your mind, even if
you're pointing out errors to yourself. In the writing business, it's
all about the shape of your mind. Hazy, glazy grey matter burnt out on
jobs, debt and the go-go-go of modern America will not produce
something marketable. In other words, you're wasting everyone's time.
Stop right now and go finish your degree in automation and
soullessness. But if you're going to be a writer, then that's your job,
and so is everything to do with it.
Here we go, if you read six books or fewer a year, and you aren't a
doctor, lawyer, crazed university student or making over 100K a year
doing something productive, then you're a member of the mindless
machine. You're a zombie. You're a stupid monster. Here's my challenge
-- I want everyone who has managed to read this far to read at least 11
books a year. And fuck the book clubs of the world - go and browse you
useless morons! If you want suggestions, tell me what you're interested
in and I'll do the research for you. Eleven books a year is easy, kids.
That even gives you a month off for good behavior. Your goal should be
20 or more. Eventually, you'll be reading five books at once and you'll
reach enlightenment.
I'll let you slide if you read big books like Werth's history of the
Soviet Union during the Second World War. That took me a long-ass time
to read, and I even skipped ahead to the sex scenes!
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Newsflash |
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For the love of god, we've changed the front page. Stop emailing me! You now have to go to WWW.GREATSOCIETY.ORG. Just lose the "fpm" up there. These are the archives. |
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