Literatrix

Yeehaw! Literatrix added my site to her blogroll!

(Pardon me. I've adopted some Jack and Ennis mannerisms since seeing Brokeback Mountain. It'll pass. It's just a phase.)

Unbeknownst to Literatrix, I have already been watching her blog—like a fox!—and now I know she's watching mine. You're dern right, my dear! We're competin', and you had better roll up yer sleeves right this instant and get to writin', elsewise I'm going to gallop right on past you and leave you chokin' on my dust!

Just kidding! Of course writers don't really compete. The truth is exactly opposite: we all kind of fuel the market for whatever we're writing (assuming it's good). I would think that this is especially true in today's market, where a writer can be published through many different presses and reach many millions of readers. Where is the competition? I don't see it.

Instead, I would like to see more Objectivist writers getting published (first things first) and then getting to know one another. Can you imagine going to a writer's conference and never hearing a single reference to “He Who Must Not Be Named”?! (I mean James Joyce, by the way, not Voldemort.) We could invite distinguished lecturers like Shoshana Milgram. We could hand out our own Non-Nobel Prizes for Literature! Let's hear it for holding an Objectivist writer's retreat by 2020. (That should give me enough time to get something published.)

Ah, well, at the end of the day, I suppose that writing will always be something that each of us has to do in the privacy of his empty office. But that doesn't mean that I don't sometimes long to interact with other writers. I know that this opportunity will come in time. First, I believe that one has to work hard enough to be published.