Art accrues

Some people write to express themselves. Some people write to communicate with specific audiences. The hardest writing is the stuff that appeals to a lot of different, unknown people. I find notes to myself that I can no longer understand; there are letters and emails that are full of code and shared ambiguities that would be confusing in the wrong hands - or even dangerous; but fiction ...

There are already more novels in print than a person could read in a lifetime. Does the world need any more? Does a new novel have to be better than what has gone before? Is topicality something people want from their fiction?

The question is important now because the traditional methods of distribution for all the creative arts is changing. And the creators are the ones who are suffering most. Bookshops are now big and muscular, or online and dictatorial, and are squeezing the publishing companies; photographers contribute to massive online libraries where the revenue gets lower and lower as more and more pictures are available; music is sold by the track or listened to for next to nothing on streaming audio. People can access everything, from any time, so new work is in obvious and direct competition with classical and proven material from all over the world. Who wants to pay a premium to listen to stuff, just because it's new or local?

I don't know what happens next. I can see less and less originality making it into the public arena and I know more and more creative people who are struggling to earn money from their imagination. Meanwhile, publishing companies are refusing to read manuscripts and even agents are preferring work by celebrities.

This is one story that does not appear to have a happy ending.