A revival of the writerly variety is budding on the internet. There
is a demand for writers who are caught up in this web revolution to look up and
away from their curbed viewpoint and visualize a whole new way of life, an advanced
plane of expressing self in art
not constrained by walls of culture or ethnicity or color or
nationality. A world composed of pen slingers
who aim with their pen to deliver one purpose, one goal, one dream; to strip the
craft of affectation and mail it to the individual internet user on a platform
so personal it can walk right up to the counter for a cup of coffee.
Earlier generations of writers could not afford exclusive access
to such profound resource at the fingertips of the contemporary literary clique.
Rephrasing Dean Koontz, “what was science
fiction a decade ago is reality today.” The thrust of responsibility on
today’s writer as the internet and social media bring the world to the neck of
the woods is delicately enterprising.
But is that outlook workable judging we all are part of some
larger clear-cut community of people which demands our input in some form which
includes but is not limited to our craft? I believe it is. We can’t lose
ourselves in a world of compromise and we don’t have to. What the writer needs
to understand is that this medium—the internet—is a community of itself and consequently
furnishes its own peculiar culture. Individual interest is protected and
respected. Yet, we are of the same color, culture, nationality, and interest. The
internet is home to a synchronized diversity. The pleasure is in being different
and yet pursuing a solitary refined cause.
Each one of us must adopt a style of storytelling that adds its inimitable
voice to the virtual universe’s storytelling. We ought to feed the www with our
unique views while trying to fit into the broader frame of collective narrative
and blend the details of our prose into the complex tapestry of our invented cosmos.
Writers on the internet must come to the full measure of awareness that the World
Wide Web and our craft cannot be separated. We define the web and we do it with
one voice without restricting creativity. We must issue a restraining order to national
boundaries, ethnic diversity, cultural differences and skin color. And let the scribbles
of the pen be the one solitary standard of evaluation.
Keep
your pen bleeding.
Akpan
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