The Writers Voice
The World's
Favourite Literary Website
I Am A Word Processor
by
Harry Buschman
(Something I wrote to myself a long time ago.)
I always thought writers wrote to be read – that there was a linkage between
writing and reading. The writer and the reader each had a job to do, a niche to
fill. Each needed the other and without one the other had no purpose.
But lately I see a clouded image of writers without readers. People writing and
no one reading. It makes me stop and consider the eventual possibilities. "Have
your read my book? No? Well I haven't read yours either?" Two of us writing,
neither of us reading.
I try to ignore this depressing image. It comes and goes quickly like the
flickering frames of an old movie. When the vision is with me it stops me short
and makes me consider that perhaps the end game of writing these days is to
waste time and paper.
Two of us, prodded on like overloaded burros by a blinking cursor urging us to
write on, write on – even when we have nothing of interest to say – even though
we have no readers. The image leaves a message in my uploaded mind that I can't
easily delete. Will we someday see the writing on the wall before Barnes &
Noble's bargain bin is bulged to bursting? Marked down from $29.95, to $14.95,
to $9.95, and now, “Any book – fifty cents.” it makes no difference how cheap it
gets, we won’t buy it. Why should we? We didn't write it.
©1995 Harry Buschman
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