SuperNova Afterglow: End Of Days

Suffer For Obligation?

PROMPT 5: Sept 5 – Do writers have obligations towards their readers? If so, what can they be? If not, why not? Do you have anything to tell about (your) readers? On Writers and Readers.


No.

What are the readers obligations to me as a writer, I offer rhetorically?

No, a writer such as myself has no debt to readers. A paid writer has obligations to publishers and editors, if under a contract. A writer might feel indebted if he or she has fans. But, we write for ourselves.

What motivates a person to write might actually determines the level of obligation one might feel. The obligation is to oneself and those who depend on them, like family, to provide a sustainable living. If a writer makes promises, there is a moral obligation in some rare instances. But, still no.

Why we become writers is this impulse to put down words and craft them in a fashion similar to puzzling. We are creating as artists, although there are grant writers, educational requirements for theses or essays, and tabloid matter, including columns and other print criteria. I won’t speak to social media, basically brainwashing and rewriting history, social, moral and ethical values.

No. We are fully going to focus on the struggling, starving profession called writing. I'm not going to look at the world through Elizabeth Gibson's lens. I write for me and aim to find a niche, to find some avenue of discovery. But, I can't think about getting paid for this. It's not nearly to that horizon.

Ah, but there might be an obligation in the process to being discovered. Why would anyone care to read us? First, you have to be in the stream where you could be found and your words can be shared. Grr, social media. How's that going to happen unless you tirelessly self-promote? When that process begins, it creates expectations. ‘Who want to read me?’ is the call. The response might be ‘we like what we so far. Show us what you've got’. Sort of an obligation there. You start mingling with readers and writers and there's the back and forth. You shout them out, the do the same. It’s a lot of work and you realize creativity has been stunted.

When is that next Gibson creation coming? I don't know. Don't care. She got paid. She created those obligations. I'm Joe Schmo sitting over here in my incipient void on the internet, hunkered down between atoms of programming matter wondering what I'm doing in this tiny space I've occupied.

I made $15? On my first digital book of poetry? On Amazon. Wasn't really pushing it or trying to be a household name. It's just something cool I could do. Now, I'm sitting here as a two-time Quill award winner of Best Poetry Collection (2020 and 2021). I'm dead in the water. There won't be anything beyond. Charitable? An honor. It's really more of a Gibson moment. But for me, resignation.

So, while I'll park my butt this fall under a tree in a sunny patch an inhale nature connecting to my soul, I won't be thinking while jotting down words who's expecting this man to hop on the internet and post these ditties. I'm purging, I'm learning about life. I'm inside my head, pinging off my soul and heart, sending signals back to my brain, stimulated to conjur up word pictures and lonely lectures on the life of a solemn poet.

No manuscript for a novel is forthcoming. No inklings of writing a short story for a site sponsored contest because I don’t get a sniff. Just an endless stream of "Epigram ‘n Aphorism Samwiches"  filling a book nearing it's end. Obligation to continue my membership is ending, too. Perhaps, a big send off in one to three years, when I drop all remaining coin collected, close account, forget writing and take up fishing. I'll stop puzzling words in my brain and sing aloud, dance with my wife in the kitchen, weed the garden beds and plant fresh bulbs, have summer cookouts, card games with friends, and keep hinting my kids need to grow up and move out — because a woman needs all of my attention. The true obligation would be her. She's not asking for a poem and a flower on her pillow, but my strong arms around her waist, a gleam in my eye as to happily spin her round and round until the bomb drops.

No. Life is my obligation.

PS -- I would gladly consent to becoming a white case here and leave all my gifts to this community. I'm not sure the obligation. It's given me SO much. But, say I'm dead and my family wants to take all my work and have a publisher create collections post part 'em? They get first crack. I'm sure I'll fade into obscurity like all the rest. Pack up all my belongings and turn the light out here before I'm white in my casket. It feels like I'm in it now.

I reiterate: I've been give SO much. I also GAVE a lot — my words, my content, my support at times, when I could. Can you imagine writing over 3,000 reviews (5k plus from deletions) the length of high school to college essays and the best you could average was maybe 10-25 cents per review? There was definitely an impulse for many years of obligation, vague as it was, to fit in. I'm grateful for my status that arrived 14 years post. Honestly, I cherish it. I think it creates further obligation, so I upped my game.

But, with mental affliction, learning disability, childhood PTSD, lingering and uncurable blindness, apnea, social awkwardness and more, you just want to get through one day without tearing the lid off something. Anger is better than self-pity. I grind. I wear out. I write. I purge. Obligation? Obligation??

We're talking about obligation???

I want mother's arms to wrap me up in my weakest moments, assurance. I want to protect my family from carpetbaggers and all the evil of the world. I have to save every last dime to make sure they are provided for when I'm gone. Maybe, that will include these unexamined words. This unmentored writing life where I struggle to co-exist. Where I wish I could tap one person on the shoulder and ask, is there any hope for me? And like some all knowing God, they can say 'give it up, kid.' You'll only get a headache.

Just, no.

No.

Elizabeth Gibson owes me an explanation.


9.5.22