I am realizing now as an author, that one has a tougher road to climb; than the folks on radio for example, with their marvelous accents and musical backgrounds that can convey a mood and action so quickly. When one looks at TV; or the videos on the internet, one realizes that the written word is slowly going the way of the dodo bird. The new world realizes that they do not need a billion good writers but can get by with a few million. So the elite are educated into a coherent species while the rest are able to get by on the spoken language, social norms and local means of communications.Fewer kids are reading these days and spend their time on other social media and video games and as a result are losing their vocabulary and gramatical skills.
The study of the classics and the source of most human knowledge remains stored in books; and the world seems to be walking away, from them. With the explosion of knowledge; so many genres have been created in the Fiction and Non Fiction categories that at times one has to sit back and think about these selections. So much of our world is turning digital, and with it we have to change our habits, and also the way we gather information whether for entertainment, or for work. In such an environment the ability to generate exclusive content becomes paramount; and there is a worldwide phenomenon to protect sources of data and to patent and to copyright this intellectual property. It is the work of the good authors, which creates magical worlds and great heroes out of ordinary people.
Facing a blank page I have to write the accent, play the music, create the scene and then flesh out the character, all in swift strokes to keep the reader involved. The challenge is that without inspiration the writer cannot weave his\her magic to bring a unique realty to the reader. So it becomes an everyday struggle between the inner demons of the author; and his innate ability, to convey them to his audience. The audience is fickle and in our world of instant messaging, easily distracted. Yet my hope is that with great authors we can still enjoy those hours; in reading a great book, to change our lives. Master authors take control of the plot, dialog, action and our lives become interwoven for those few hours or days, as we imbibe their story telling art. Sit back and let the story teller tell his tale, and do not be surprised as the action grips you and you suddenly find yourself, off to the races!