Being Heard

There’s an old chestnut: If you’re bored writing, your readers will also be bored. For me, I find my best writing doesn’t come when I’m engaged and bashing the keyboard and the words flow easily. Rather, when I have an idea of where the story wants to go, when I know what I want to say, but putting the words on paper is painful: that’s when I know I'm in a good place. When I have to interrupt my writing to cuddle the dog, or play with my daughter, or remind myself in some other way that my life and my emotions are separate from my story.

I’m lucky in this respect to have the amazing support structure that I do. I have an encouraging wife, a loving family, and, thanks to my union, a stable and dependable living situation. This is why, as the Supreme Court decides debt relief is only for corporations, only for the rich; as techbros insist an algorithm can write as well as any person; as the precarious become more precarious and the secure more secure, I worry we are losing something precious.

“Content” has never been more ubiquitous than it is now, and yet there’s never been a worse time to be a writer. Consolidation in the large presses means the very top of the market gets everything and the edges are frozen out; publication remains the preserve of the white and the wealthy despite shifts in reader demographics. Amazon, meanwhile, has become a clearinghouse for scams and artificial intelligence. The great plagiarism robot churns out new, grammatically-correct but soulless work. The only people who can write are those, like me, who are fortunate enough to have stable sources of income outside the industry.

And so we lose out on new voices, diverse voices, the voices of the people who now make up most of our society. The renters, the service workers, the poor and the marginalized: their stories aren’t being told, at least not in America. Perhaps, looking back at history, that’s always been the case. The rich have never lacked a voice. The internet was supposed to change everything, to democratize culture. In a way, it has: it’s never been easier to express yourself. But, caught between one hose spewing AI junk and another spewing billions of dollars, it’s also never been harder to be heard.

So, thank you for listening to me.