Woe to the scribe...

Why is it that we writers are such a breed apart?

Woe to the scribe whose work captures lifes most prescious moment's, feelings and thought's, recording and journaling the inside news relative to spirit and the solemn few. Insataible introverts whose recluse characteristics coincide with history's most notable subjects, whose immortal words seemed out-whieghed in time.
I've collected many works over the years, old leather bound prose whose words have become almost too primative for a modern audiance. The poet's, the philosopher's, the essayist's,  the mystic's and of course the novelists with stories painted with the heavy verbage of thier time. As I stare at an old copy of Mark Twain, I wonder if he would even stand a chance in todays market. Its pages waft the stale dust of 125 years of shelf life.
So many names and titles where the authors pondered prose by the light of an oil lamp, candle or fiery hearth; I wonder by what means Plato etched his essay's, when most of the world hunted with stone spears.

Time has changed a great many things yet the quintessential writer has changed little, they still won't be found peeling labels in the local bar; save Hemmingway. Nor will they be found watching Nascars go round and round, nor at the Balckjack table; save Ian Flemming. These endeavors are rarely their forte. Their whole sense of being centers on a seemingly intangible motivation thats as unique as each frame of refference. They don't wan't to control the external that would mean loss of drama; they don't want to discover new worlds through a microscope for lack of quality adjectives.

Writer's are compelled my a mysterious undercurrent, while trying to capitalize on feelings sometimes too subtle to capture, or to express an experience with glory for the sake of the art.
The pen (computor) is not only the method of capturing but of comprehending and concocting these synoptic symbolism's.
We learn to be emotionally sensitive and to funnel that energy into digestable words that are many times kept private in our endless handwritten stacks of notebooks and journals; our legacy to ourselves chalk full of bursts of genius and insperational inuendo, with words that drip with the dew of dispairity.  Other times we feel the urge to reach out ang tug on the heartstrings of humanity.
The hauty ego wanes and we tip our nose up at the tripe on the bookstore shelf, occaisionally endulging in a shalow novel and seeing the perfection; shallow minded verbage for a shallow minded audience. We have to dig hard for the gems, far past the best sellers that have marketing campaignes that are rivaled only by cinema. If you want to sell a million spend a million, book biz is marketing biz, and today the publishers want you not only to lay down blood, sweat and tears writing but in your own marketing as well. If you write intelligence for the intelligent you just reduced your market to about 10%.

I have found the best work must have a deep emotional attachment to be of substance;  I want to feel the message, not sit back and chew the fat of some mindless muse or pretentious poet, yet what I think matters not.
Our first commitment is to the Art!  So please keep convulsing, constructing and convoluting for the consistory of creativity!
 

Happy new year!

Sincerely,  H.J.Cruz