The author, Dane F. Baylis |
PLEASE! MAKE THE VOICES STOP!
OR
Just a thing or two that’s DRIVING ME BUGHOUSE!
I could probably blame this on the traditional
publishers. They have the pipeline to the brick and mortar stores and hold sway
with the likes of a certain mega-presence on the Internet that wants to become
all things to all people. But that's just where it starts. Besides, this
didn’t begin in the cyber-era.
Every period has had its million seller fiction.
(Well, at least the eras that could muster a million LITERATE souls.) Elizabethan
drama, Transcendentalist treatise, the satire of late nineteenth century
America, Dickensian grit, detective novels, fantasy, vampire, mommy porn. All right, I get it! You have one
author who hits it and every shut-in with a keyboard wants on the band wagon. Sherlock
Holmes eventually becomes steam punk and Tolkien is reproduced over and over
(without the care and sense of storytelling) until dragons become household
pets. If I even see one more
vampire series, I swear I will track down the author and drive a stake through
his or her heart! And I don’t care HOW
MANY shades it came in, that was the
most unerotic erotica I’ve EVER read.
What’s followed would put a nymphomaniac to sleep. (Talk about an effective
form of non-prescription birth control.)
There were two
hundred and fifty thousand MORE e-books published last year than there were
physical books. I will wager dollars to doughnuts two hundred forty nine
thousand nine hundred of those should never
have seen the light of day. Why? Go ahead, download one of the $.99 specials.
Likely it is rife with misspelling, misuse, and grammar that would have grandma
spinning in her grave!
I appreciate everyone wants their fifteen minutes. Does it have to be so unreadably painful for the rest of us? Not that I
place a lot of faith in the app, but what happened to Spell Check? I keep seeing the
symbol for it everywhere. What do these fledgling Kerouac’s imagine it’s
for…Checking to see if they’re having
one?
Let’s not even touch on plot and genre for the
moment…My med’s are still lost in the mail and I can’t risk the apoplexy the
subject brings on. My only comment is, if someone else has already done it…Why? Okay, if you can do it that much
better, and someone other than your mom says you have achieved that goal, great.
We all hate to be superseded but it gives us something to rise against and
strive for.
People, the struggle is part of finding your voice.
Unless you want to look like the ventriloquist’s wooden headed partner…What’s
the other word they call them?…Then put some time into not sounding like a
thin, slightly slurred version of another author.
The world needs more writers. Just not more bad ones. It would make the rest of us look good if
it weren’t for the fact we’re being buried under the avalanche.
Meanwhile...live, love, write.
Want to follow or subscribe to this blog? There are
gadgets for that on the right side of the page. You can leave comments in the
form below. I can be reached directly at dbaylis805@gmail.com . You can
also find links to some of the sites I visit from time to time on the right. I'm
also looking for submissions to the Your Work/Your Love page. Authors retain all
rights.
Later all,
Dane F. Baylis. Author.
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