Just another drunk with a pen - (Nepotism and other issues with writers).

 

Look at this image.

I'll discuss it more after the following.

Text Publishing Australia

This was written in 2012 but still applies. In fact, never more than now. See bottom image.

Just another drunk with a pen

 

That’s a trademark I can accept

Preferable to another blogger with Me syndrome

Or another middle-class wanker

With a literary degree

Implementing flowery play on words

Self-important cleverness

With the need

And avenue to impress

Doesn’t the truth count for anything?

Where is the sweat and desperation?

That isn’t born out of a need

To shock

Or to create a false, try hard persona.

 

I want it genuine

Dripping with substance

And all its pain

By those who feel it most

Those sensitive ones

Who are clinging onto the lip of the abyss

Not because they want to be

But because they are scrambling hardest to get up

Collapsing, relieved on the surface

And not sitting on the mountain

Analyzing intellectual angles from afar.

 

The desolate do not smell the sweet

But pungent to the point of decay

The others on their perch

May pretend to comprehend

Yet have never lived

Down on the plains.

 

I’m slowly giving up the compulsion

To give a fuck

But I’m not there

Just yet.

 

Years on, I'm a little closer to accepting that this is just the way it is. But I'm not there yet.  The ones that are connected, have the most success. ie, those already in literary circles. The image above shows it perfectly.

"I'm afraid it takes more than mere talent to get anywhere these days. The world is simply brimming with talented people."

From Something to Live For - 1952

Almost every writer I've ever read about who was published, was connected in some way. Excluding those in my Famous After Death series. And even then, writers like John Kennedy Toole, who infamously committed suicide after not getting his novel published, had a lot of correspondence with a publisher beforehand. 

J.K. Rowling, among others, whinge how they were rejected many times but she had an agent. Her work was being seen by the right people. If you don't have an agent and they can be just as hard to get, or a strong publisher connection, then forget it. You're invisible. Emailing your novel is pointless. No one will look at it.

It's even worse now. In today's 'woke' world you can be guaranteed that the work is not the most important factor. Identity politics is being used as promotional tools. You only have to turn on the TV to see how every company is bending over backwards to use 'feel good' content to push their product. 

All one gender. All one colour. Where's the inclusion? Where's the diversity?
No dissenting voices. The silence is deafening. 
It was never about equality. It's a power grab. The hypocrisy is staggering.

It's a form of nepotism. The arts in particular are full of it. It's nothing more than a circle jerk. 

At best, it's an exclusive club. To make things 'inclusive,' they create exclusivity. As a white male, I'm at the bottom of the pecking order. Purely because of my skin colour and gender. Ironic. But still wrong. In fact, it's worse, because they purport to be doing the right thing and hold the moral high ground. If you speak against it, you're branded a bigot and cancelled.

Hence, the final straw into why I had to go my own way. 

If I'd known what was coming I would have done it years before. After completing my first novel, I banged on publisher's doors for fifteen years. After dreaming of being a writer from the age of eight. Forty-five years is a long time to hold onto a dream. Too long.

A.J. Langford Books

Apologies if this all seems a bit ranty. As mentioned, 45 years is a very long time.

I have more novels ready to go. Very different from anything I've published before. Mostly Young Adult and Sci-Fi. I've just lost motivation for now.

I think I need a drink haha