Sorry, Henway—the reply notification emails come “from” Bud—I see now that it is you, not he, that responded. I certainly think there can be value to displaying work online, but I think context counts for a lot. Can we really expect the average web surfer to take our work seriously? And do they even want to read works or excerpts of creative writing? Isn’t most of the demand for news and reports, reviews and rants? I guess a lot of it depends on what you’re looking for from your audience…

Ultimately, is web-based publishing—like the proliferance of small presses and chapbooks—promoting creative explosion, or cheapening art? (or neither, if you don’t like my two options )

“...do they even want to read works or excerpts of creative writing? Isn’t most of the demand for news and reports, reviews and rants?”

I think people want all that you’ve said and more.  Even if most of the demand at the bookstore goes for James Patterson, that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for other stuff.  Many of the biggest readers of online writing I know are writers themselves.  It may be difficult for scads of people to find a new voice immediately, and traffic may build sporadically and slowly, but that’s not so different than publishing chapbooks.  The online demand is for anything people can possibly be interested in.  There are robust online knitting blogs, foot fetish blogs, screenwriting blogs, etc.  These are tools by which scattered people with common itches scratch them together, and I think if people want to be read more than anything, the web is a great place to have that happen.

Good topic. I think primarily we need to consider the focus of the blog. A lot of blogs simply don’t have one. I think quite frankly most people don’t care what writers have for their breakfast or what TV shows they watched the night before. I created Dead Beat to offer thoughts or advice that I believe me have helped shape my writing thus far. I mentor and teach creative writing and see the blog as a great way of reaching out to ‘younger’ writers without any cost involved. The hope is that something I say will strike a chord and help in some fashion. I think the danger is for the ‘younger’ writer that they can be a real distraction from the act of writing fiction, poetry or whatever if this is what they mainly want to write. The temptation of self-publishing or instant gratification is stronger than ever and may result in people publishing work before it is a final draft. It could and I suspect does encourage sloth. But I understand that the journey to being a published writer is a long one and people need encouragement and support along the way. This community of writing can provide some of that much as a writer’s group (which can be equally dangerous) does. Here’s my suggestion - use the blog to write about the writing process (I urge this upon both published and unpublished writers) rather than to showcase work or showcase your lifestyle. In that way everyone may learn something which will help all of us in ourlong journey ahead.

Dead Beat: http://gerardbeirne.blogspot.com
Howl - A New Generation of Minds http://howlnewgeneration.blogspot.com
Dear Dead beat - A Literary Agony Column: http://deardeadbeat.blogspot.com

I tend to agree that it’s a matter of focus and goals.  Some people may never become “serious” authors- I know many of these, but online can offer the level of gratification they seek, and it reinforces them as appreciators and consumers of writing, too.  Many serious authors I know take the tack you do and post mainly writing-related items that they think will help or inform others.  Some post a little of everything, and as I’ve said, I think there’s an audience for everything.  For some writers, blogging distracts, but I always believe that people who really desire to finish a short story collection or a novel or whatever will learn that if they only have a few good hours of writing time per week, using those first for the scattered unpolished fragments that make up most blogs (including mine) won’t get them there.

I think this…

Ultimately, is web-based publishing—like the proliferance of small presses and chapbooks—promoting creative explosion, or cheapening art?

is one of the big questions of electronic media. I don’t know what the answer is and of course it’s a bit of both.

The great thing about blogs is that they tear down barriers that previously kept published talent limited to those who had connections of some sort, which is an wholly artificial barrier that has nothing to do with quality. Of course, the problem arises that the proverbial cream may have a difficult time rising amongst the flood, but in the scheme of things, that’s not terrible.

I think to answer the question requires a new definition of art that is more open-ended and geared toward self-expression. It used to be that we relied on self-appointed arbiters of culture (for example, The Paris Review, The New York Times) to tell us what art is and what qualifies as art. Now that function is taken over by the reader/viewer on a one-to-one basis. That may not be wholly satisfying for the creator of the art, who wants to be recognized (by society?) as an artist, but it does convey a certain freedom on their part too (to not have to conform) and often lets them connect with those who get meaning from their work. I think that’s all positive and the task is finding away to facilitate those connections.

Thanks for your thoughtful response, Bud. My initial response is to question the inherent good of decentralizing the credibility of artistic culture—of, as you say, getting rid of the arbiters. While a seemingly noble and democratic ideal, I can’t help but recall a phrase my boss likes to reiterate: “no one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.” (H.L. Mencken, I believe) While it’s true we don’t all have our personal Ezra Pounds to usher us in to the limelight, and that blogging might (maybe) help us find an audience, I also wonder if the inherent character of the medium—one of surfing, quickly, through lots of information—will distort the art as writers pander to the most sensational elements of their craft that “win” them links, comments, praise, and high Google rankings. I suppose the question might be something like: which is more flawed—the mainstream publishing industry, or the blogosphere—when it comes to surfacing and sustaining good art? Or, in the positive, which is most successful? I honestly don’t think the web has been around long enough to tell, and yet I am tempted to extrapolate from my own experience of its brief existence to say that forging meaningful connections online seems very hard.

I agree that blogs won’t replace those arbiters entirely - however, when I talk about this sort of thing, I’m not thinking of the public in general, but really more of a cultural elite (knowing full well that the word elite gets me into all sorts of trouble), who now have the power to bypass those who would be arbiters to the world at large - this potential for disintermediation, if you will, just didn’t exist before. Credibility lives in the idea of the social network, which in my view will not in the future be as myriad and random as it is now (this is partly why MetaxuCafe has human editorial elements rather than complete automation) where groups of loosely defined and geographically diverse ‘friends’ with common interests have a dialogue with one another and credibility is achieved solely out of merit.

that’s happening now, but you’re right it’s far from perfect at this stage (and social networks will always be ‘messy.’

It occurs to me that in a way we are talking about the democratization of everything—including, in our specific case, literature. Therefore the classic arguments about democratiziation including the notion of “mob rule” versus a utopian self-government all apply. Yet adjacent to all this is my point about the nature of the medium—in this case the web. A tangental but related topic is that of “performance” writing—something I have touched on in my blog:

http://www.robertpeake.com/archives/169-Reading-Poems-Well.html

In a sense, rendering a highly dramatic performance of a literary piece is somewhat like sounding an air horn in a classical music concert (during the quiet slow movement). It gets attention, but is inappropriate to the setting. Likewise, I can’t help but feel that the blogosphere is inherently a kind of “fast food” variety of literature, and that setting its consumables beside print literature is likewise somehow inappropriate.

A bizarre case-in-point:

http://www.leevilehto.net/google/google.asp

is how much some of these randomly generated “works of art” can start to sound like contemporary prose poetry. Yet they are not works of art, just as your blogs or forums, left unmoderated, would not be nice places to hang out. Human intervention is critical, and only humans can make art, or judge what art is art. Yet the average approach to modern literature, and the average literacy level (which is where all online literacy will ultimately trend in an unchecked environment) is far below that of any artist who ever “transcended his/her age.”

I guess I think credibility must come from deep thought and longstanding experience, which is the opposite of what the causal surfer is prepared to offer in response to online art. So, I think if merit is decided on a quantity vote, as in so much social networking, we are in trouble…

Interesting, Robert, but I’m really not thinking in terms of mean reversion. I have no interest in the quantity vote, particularly since my focus is on literature, that would always be a losing proposition.

When I said “elite” earlier, I meant something like “avid.” A self-selecting group that uses technology to raise their awareness, think out-loud, be social, etc. Sure all this applies to the masses, but I’m talking about consumers and creators of art specifically and the groups they can form. I believe that amidst the noise of daily linking there is a high level of discussion (and I don’t just mean academic or hyper-intelligent, but more like earnestness and thoughtfulness) going on - I quite literally put my money on that idea.

The internet is vast and currently quite cheap. So let those who think that these specious “works of art” are indeed art keep on doing so and go about discussing what you believe and I believe to be art (what an awkward sentence).

I hear you Bud, and couldn’t agree more that the most valuable purpose of the blogosphere and the internet in general (had to resist the urge not to capitalize that...) is the ability to “think out-loud”. You certainly have created a space for interesting conversation and dialog here, and I apprecaite it.

Just a quick bump to point out there’s an interesting post today on using blogs to teach literature:

http://porquoipas.blogspot.com/2006/09/on-teaching-literature-with-blogging.html

Kirkus Reviews talks to TC Boyle

KR: How long have you had your own web site?

TCB: It was started on August 4, 1999. We had 20,000 hits the first year. We get that every four days now.

KR: What do you think of blogs?

TCB: I was one of the original bloggers. I do a monthly, or semi-monthly, update for fans. Generally speaking, I think blogs are great but I’m more interested in reading real writers with real books. Blogs are often like diaries, it’s a private thing that’s become public.

Now link this into Talk Talk

Dead Beat - 09 September 2006 12:13 AM

I’m more interested in reading real writers with real books.

Fascinating