Homer probably didn't ask, 'How do I get published?'

Homer probably didn't ask, 'How do I get published?'  To be fair, Homer was more than likely also more than one person, a mythic poet image that rose from a class of bards of the period who roamed the countryside reciting epics to the gathered crowds.  Even if Homer was a conglomeration of all the bards of his time under one eventual name, let's face it, they all still wouldn't have asked 'How do I get published?'

Why?  Publishing wasn't an issue in those days.

It's relatively easy to stop there with a simple declarative.  Well, publishing wasn't invented yet.  But is it fair to end the discussion there?  How long has the world been without the publishing industry as it is now known?  Agents, for example, are a very recent phenomenon.  Maybe half a century, a whole one if you're stretching the definition of 'agent' to include a person in authority, such as an editor interested in distributing your work.  Before there was a dire need to turn our writing into products for a publishing market, there was a very different way to write.  Even as late as the period in which Jane Austen or Emily Dickinson were writing, the world of words didn't work as it does now.

So, how did the world get on without formal publishing for millennia?  In his book, Building a Bridge to the Eighteenth Century, author Neil Postman suggests that when we hit a simple declarative we must ask ourselves:  Why?  Like Neil Postman, I am also a big proponent of going back in order to go forward.  And as I look back I have to ask myself, why didn't we have formal publishing - as in books being sold as products - for so long?

Today it would be easy to find your answer to this question.  You are a writer like I am so I won't insult your intelligence by providing my answer.  Anyone who hears the calling to write can and will come up with their own answers no matter what they read here.  Each author's journey is unique and if I insist that you use my answers, who is the better for that?

Instead this blog is where I would like to discuss the Old Ways of writing as an alternative to the modern way of writing.  Here we can see that the vestiges of this way are still alive, even reignited around us today.

The world is changing rapidly and the internet has created a new place where everyone and anyone now voices their opinion freely.  In this democratic age for the wordsmith, even vanity publishing is rapidly turning into proper self-publishing.  If not in print, blogs now saturate the internet, both good and bad.  All of this creates a modern-day Forum for the current human being to experience.  It's interesting that this new writing model is closer to the forums of ancient times than the publishing world we have worked with for the past few centuries.  I would like to embrace that change.

I was struck by an amusing notion while taking a drive last weekend.  If writing is sacred, then wishing to become a writer can be much the same as wishing to join a monastery.  Let's say a man wants to become a monk, and so he goes to the Abbot for admission to his monastery of choice.  The Abbot asks, "What's your reason for applying to be a monk?"

Much like the young writer who may reply, "I want to be published," this young recruit may say, "I want to be a famous saint one day!"  Somehow, I can just imagine the look on the Abbot's face when he hears that.

Once I began to approach writing as something far greater than a product of a marketplace, my point of view changed.  If I stood before the Abbot and he asked, "Why?"  My answer now would be, "I want to do good works."