Common as Corn

I wanted to capture the process before the events of the day eclipses the freshness of it and I lose them until another galvanizing moment; like upset or sudden unexpected shift to the orderly parade of my well planned life, a broken fingernail gets total attention in the specific aftermath of its appearance.

I sent a response to an email advertisement on Write-job.com. They were seeking someone to submit several short stories (paying $40 apiece). The submission instructions were to send an email to a particular address on craigslist, then they would send back specific subject outline request.  I had noticed from past ads posted on craigslist that they were taken down fairly quickly, so was hesitant to spend too much time on an introduction message. 

  I put the usual greetings and a short bio I held in reserve for such occasions.  Usually soon after sending I would get an alert that the address was no longer active; then I’d go along with my business.  On this occasion nothing happened, so again, I also went along with my business.  Later that evening I got a response email to my submission and it said, “Hello Albert ~ before I send the outline for the sample, I want to make sure you understand that the content is for a very mature adult website.  The themes all revolve around coerced/forced sex acts.  As long as this doesn’t offend you, I will send along the outline.”

  I found it rather humorous, as well as obvious, I was fishing in the wrong pond.  I also felt a bit grateful for the time it took to orient me on what they wanted and what I may have been getting myself into.  For just a few heartbeats I thought of Anais Nin and how the only work she could get was the publishing of her risqué journals ~ called diarist back in the 1930’s.  So If I were to take the offer I’d be in the company of a fine author since I found her work vivid and riveting.  What also surfaced was something I wasn’t counting on, but now recognize had been simmering.  It was over the outright commercial nobbling, abducting, snatching, seizing or more commonly known as kidnapping, of creativity.

   As I read one advertisement to another calling for writers to write blogs, I see that the demand is about specific sports, towns, travel, and how-to’s I see the underpinning demand for writing skills is to convey a product or service.  Now that may be my own outrage and I’ll deal with that in due course.  

But it also stirred up my memory of when I was a fledgling guitar player.  I knew a few songs, perhaps a few dozen cords, and my voice was in its adolescent cracking.  But never mind that sensitivity period, what chaffed me most was when my parents would have parties at the house they would invariably ask me to come out and play my guitar for their guest.  My siblings and I were accustomed to this sort of treatment; we had ‘entertained’ strangers all of my growing up years.  Singing, dancing, doing skits, all at the bequest of my parents, (who now I realize were most likely totally drunk.)  My recall of these events from my teenage years, as vividly painful; sitting there singing my heart out to John Denver’s Country Roads only to see the guest wonder off or engage in loud conversations  drowning me out, while I tried to play.  Again, perhaps it was just my fragile ego at that moment but I still cringe today at the memory of it.

   I still discern creative writing different from that of journalistic, or literature as some might say.  I still find it difficult to get the former accepted for publishing when it’s not linked to some money generating endeavor.  It’s sad for me to witness art being corrupted for merchandising interest.  

Talent has become a raw material; or at best, a commodity that is used to turn a buck; something to be manipulated, something as common as corn. Not to long ago it was considered a divine gift.