SEPT 26 — A while back it was reported that there were 20,000 books published in the US annually. And also 50,000 books enter the shelves of the Library of Congress, the largest library in the world, every month.
The information is dated — the prevailing volume today must be astronomical. Factor the print and electronic media, e-books, blogs, Facebook fanpages and everything else floating in cyberspace or second-hand book fairs in rundown malls, today there is an ocean of words none of us would ever experience completely.
I note all this because fairly recent, say a day ago, a writer with a following observed that she did not like people — readers, friends, acquaintances, PR executives or juvenile delinquents — asking her to write this or that in her columns. I’m sure it was a well-meaning reaction despite glibly laid out, but personally I’d never say anything like that.
Still, she had valid remarks about how some err in their ways to get notice and are directing their queries in the wrong direction. Nor was she off the mark by stating the media, any media, is not beholden to any particular party.
However, no media owner or the writers in those organisations when they realise the consumer power readers have would deride the “expressions” of the readers.
Writers live and die by those who read them. Which is why I feel like doing a back-flip whenever someone says he’s read me, and I am ever so willing to help that person in return execute a back-flip if he says without prompting he did not completely hate what he read.
These guys care enough to ask you, they are not asking everything.
While it takes all kinds to serve a reading public, there are worse things than being asked to write about something. You can always politely say no, and thank them for reading. As long as it is not telling you what to do, no offence needs to be considered.
For as the future proceeds, as it often does, the race for readers will rage on, as more writers, more mediums and a population with shorter attention spans act their roles out, and in that reality annoying readers will be the last concern of any person wanting to make a living from writing.
The opulence has lasted only half a leaf
If human history to this point was to be represented by a tree then the period gifted writers were rewarded would be half a leaf. That is not to suggest they were not well regarded, they always were, but they were also always poor.
Thank you the Industrial Revolution, in particular Johann Gutenberg. Gifted the world with the printing press to retell the cruelties of that age, and mourn the forests cut down to feed the presses.
The world is in the dawn of the Information Age, which has reconstituted the crisis for writers worldwide, when words are travelling three-hundred-sixty degrees with ease who’s going to be paid anymore?
When everyone writes and at the same time judges, commercial value turns into an increasingly subjective financial modelling.
The cute and the cuter
When Malayans went to the polls in 1955, less than five per cent of them had more than rudimentary education, depending on how you define functional literacy.
The modern history of the country is largely sourced from British historians and the public school system is inundated with rushed books for decades, this is a nation with a major written material deficit.
While I’ve outlined the varied and robust Information Age we live in, unfortunately Malaysia has lagged behind.
All these translate to many looking on to others to say what they wished they could. And even if Malaysia had the best of education and development, there will always be a population not inclined to expressing themselves.
Would it be oh so awful for those who can, to do that on their behalf?
Yesterday morning a representative from my alumni asked me to give some plug for our annual games between the old and present boys. I’ve since replied to him that that it may not be appropriate for this alumnus to use this space to tell so many non-Victorians that the games will be on October 5, or that there would be five face-offs not limited to football, basketball, rugby and water-polo. Exhaustive, if chess is included. I had to decline him. I may even have to meet him at 9am on that Saturday, when the games commence, to explain further why I was not able to assist.
I love my inbox
I don’t like the Harry Potter series (nor am I partial to the Lord of the Rings if it had to be said), but I can imagine for years writing the sequels when the early books were madly loved by millions, JK Rowlings would have received enough feedback on how the next books should be.
But neither would she have wished she was a failure, just to avoid an opinionated readership crowd her own thoughts on characters she’s created.
So for me in this room in Cheras, pounding away while the two guards across the street trade stories to fight the boredom and the unnerving stares of a German Shepherd from the compound adjacent, I’d welcome all the interactions that can come my way from anything I write, even orange juice box labels.
I used to joke about how I do like spam letters in my email inbox because it tells me there are those out there always wanting to influence me, but in hindsight today perhaps there is some truth in even automated and rarely targeted online mail.
Still, even minor writers tend to have their egos stroked up to a rude size at times. That is when I visit a proper library. Standing in the middle of the hall, the immensity of what has preceded me tells me all I have to know.
I’m just glad I’m writing. Readers, they are such luxuries.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
